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THE CARPENTER'S SON. 



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THE CARPENTER'S SON. 



Oux dbzdz icup 6 too tsxzopoi; oloz; — Matt. xiii, 55. 



B 



H. A. TUPPER. 



BALTIMORE: 
R. H. WOODWARD AND COMPANY. 

1889. 






Copyright, 1888, by R. H. Woodward and Company. 



The Li 




The Jas. B. Rodgers Printing Company, 

52 and 54 North Sixth Street, 

Philadelphia. 



INSCRIPTION. 



I INSCRIBE THIS BOOK TO 

ilia 3dovth tOife, 

WHO, AS THE MOST CONSTANT AND CONSCIENTIOUS 

READER OF THE BIBLE THAT I HirVE 

EVER KNOWN, IS AN 

INSPIBATION TO THE STUDY OF THE SCRIPTURES, 

WHOSE MAIN DOCTRINES AND FACTS, 

WITH 

SOME OF THE PRINCIPLES OF NATURE AND PROVIDENCE 

RELATED TO THEM, 

I HAVE TRIED TO GENERALIZE IN THIS VOLUME, 

TO THE 

honor of him whose name it bears, 

The Author. 

Richmond, Ya,, Aug. 28th, 1888. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Strange and Suggestive Stoey, . 1 

CHAPTER II. 

Constructive Principle Universal, 7 

CHAPTER III. 
Prevailing Suffering and Death, 12 

CHAPTER IV. 
The Symbol— Solomon, 17 

CHAPTER V. 
The Carpenter's Son— On Earth, 23 

CHAPTER VI. 
In Nature, 34 

CHAPTER VII. 
In the Bible, 44 

CHAPTER VIII. 
In Providence and History, 51 

CHAPTER IX. 
In the Purposes of Grace, 62 

CHAPTER X. 

In Man's Creation and Fall, 69 

CHAPTER XI. 

In Antediluvian Period, 76 



VIU CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XII. 

PAGE 

In Patriarchal Period— Abraham, 85 

CHAPTER XIII. 
Other Patriarchs, 94 

CHAPTER XIV. 
Other Patriarchs, 104 

CHAPTER XV. 
In Mosaic Period, 115 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Salient Points of Mosaic Period, 132 

CHAPTER XVII. 

In Settlement in Canaan, 141 

CHAPTER XVIII. 
In the Days of the Judges, 152 

CHAPTER XIX. 

In the Days of the Kings, 163 

CHAPTER XX. 
The Temple, 174 

CHAPTER XXI. 

In Captivity— Re-building Temple, 187 

CHAPTER XXII. 

In the Prophets, 202 

CHAPTER XXIII. 
In the Gospel, 215 

CHAPTER XXIV. 
In Glory, 244 



THE CARPENTER'S SON. 



CHAPTER I. 
STRANGE AND SUGGESTIVE STORY. 

Is not this the carpenter ? — Mark vi. 3. 

IN the Apocryphal New Testament this story is told : 
The king of Jerusalem ordered Joseph of Nazareth 
to build for him a throne to fit a certain place in the 
palace where the king was accustomed to sit. After 
two years Joseph finished the throne, but found to his 
dismay that it did not fit the place, as the king had 
ordered, by two spans. Josephs son bade his father to 
take hold on one side of the throne while he took hold 
on the other, and stretched it until it made a perfect fit. 
The story continues in these quaint words : " The throne 
was made of the same wood which was in being in 
Solomon's time, namely, wood adorned with various 
shapes and figures." 

This is a strange story, and none the less so because 
material used by the royal builder of the first temple is 
associated with Joseph's son, who is called in the gospel 
according to Mark "the carpenter/' (6 zixrajv) and who 

1 



2 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

appeared in public first in the temple, saying, " Wist ye 
not that I must be about my Father's business ? " and 
whose zeal for the temple was so great that beholders 
were reminded of the Messianic prediction, " The zeal 
of thine house hath eaten me up." 

A suggestive feature of the legend is that the skill of 
the son was greater than that of the father. This is 
not strange. The trade of Joseph's son was given him 
not merely by his reputed father, but by his real Father 
— as much as was divinely given the vocation of Beza- 
leel and Aholiab, builders of the tabernacle, " in whom 
the Lord put wisdom and understanding to know how 
to work all manner of work for the service of the 
sanctuary;" and the business of Hiram, who, " filled 
with wisdom and understanding/' wrought the skilled 
and divinely-ordered work of the temple of Solomon. 

And need not this to have been just so? That eter- 
nal purpose which planned the whole creation and 
history of the universe from eternity to eternity, and 
the unfailing providence, which superintends the execu- 
tion of that plan from the birth and work and death of 
the least animalcule to the origin and movement and 
destiny of worlds and systems of worlds, must have 
determined and superintended all that pertained to the 
incarnation of the Sou of God, and, among other things, 
the occupation of his boyhood and earlier manhood 
to which he Avas adapted no doubt by special mental 
and physical abilities. He that wings the butterfly and 
shapes the leaf for certain ends, had positive reason 
why Jesus of Nazareth should be a carpenter and a 



STRANGE AND SUGGESTIVE STORY. 3 

carpenter's son, and more skilled and powerful, as the 
legend has it, than his carpenter father. 

And what was that reason ? There is a doctrine of 
correspondence between the material and the immaterial, 
between the natural and the spiritual, which, though it 
may be pressed too far, has in it a basis of truth. The 
material and the natural are the phenomena of the 
immaterial and the spiritual, and are sometimes their 
representatives and symbols. It is designed by the 
universal author that we should pass from the obvious 
to the recondite, from the manifest to the hidden, from 
the human to the divine. Hence the trade of this so- 
called " carpenter " of Nazareth was given to or assumed 
by him because it was the best practical representation 
of what he was really and essentially. He was a maker, 
a builder. Who built the spire of grass with its 
measured frame and its fibrous covering and its graceful 
proportions and its complete symmetry; and the more 
elaborately constructed tree with its root-foundation, its 
supporting trunk, its bracing branches and twigs and its 
foliage-covered whole; and the boundless forests of 
nature and the plantations of man—these buildings 
that make up the vegetable kingdom of human science ? 
Who built the pebble with its component parts, the 
rock with its perfectly adjusted atoms, the mountain 
with its well laid strata, and the stupendous construc- 
tion of the waters of the deep? And who fabricated 
the marvellous structures and organisms of bird and 
beast and fish and man ? Is there any human edifice 
so accurate in proportions, so harmonious in adjustment, 



4 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

so adapted in its uses, so perfect in its completeness 
as these constructions? And are not these as psalms 
and hymns in Nature's Temple? He that built the 
spire of grass built our globe, and built all worlds ; and 
did he not put them together into a grand Temple for 
the divine glory? In the Old Testament he is called 
Wisdom, and he says of himself, " I was set up from 
everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth 
was. . . . And by wisdom the Lord founded the 
earth and established the heavens." In the New Tes- 
tament he is called the Word, of whom it is written, 
"In the beginning was the word, and the word was 
with God, and the word was God. . . . All things 
were made by him, and without him was not anything 
made that was made." And as to the temple-idea, why 
did he make anything — everything? In pondering 
aright this question we must conclude, sooner or later, 
that he made all things for the praise of his own name ; 
which accords with the divine declaration, "for of him 
and through him and to him are all things, to whom be 
glory forever. Amen." Hence we read that the whole 
world is full of his glory. And is not " the world full 
of his glory" the best possible description of a grand 
and universal temple ? 

And when disaster came upon this temple of nature 
by a vital part falling into ruin, the same builder came 
again to rebuild, saving a part of the fallen material; 
to construct a temple vaster and more enduring — 
a temple whose corner-stone and foundations and mate- 
rials and completion are described in the gospel, and 



STRANGE AND SUGGESTIVE STORY. O 

the architect and builder of which is plainly declared to 
be this Carpenter's Son, called in contempt 6 zixriov, as 
he was called il the sinner's friend ," and yet called so 
truly, though he might have been called more truly 
(6 dp^rixTcov) " the Master Builder." 

The story suggests also that the Carpenter's Son did 
work other than house-building. And this is the im- 
port of the term by which he is called. He is not 
called by the term (6 ocxodo/ioz) house-builder, but by 
the broader term rendered in the gospel "the carpenter," 
6 tsxtcov, which derived from Tsu^a> y to make, to con- 
struct, to build, means the maker, the constructor, the 
builder. This symbolizes more perfectly the varied and 
vast workmanship of the eternal Son in his creative and 
recreative office. He makes thrones and nations, and 
plans and systems, and races angelic and redeemed — the 
last race, a special one that makes applicable to him the 
classic phrase 6 rixvcov ysyoo^; as well as, as has been said, 
worlds combined and reconstructed, comprehending these 
things and all things harmonious and praise-giving into 
a temple universal and everlasting, of which he is, as I 
have said, really b Apxivixrajv, rendered in the New Tes- 
tament " the master-builder." As maybe convenient, 
I shall use the terms 6 tsxtwv and even 6 dpzczixvcov as 
interchangeable with "the carpenter" or "the carpen- 
ter's son." 

And the fitness of the correspondence between the trade 
of the Carpenter's Son and the ordained work of the Son 
of the Divine Creator and Preserver of all, is seen more 
clearly as we reflect how carpentry implies in its results, 



6 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

creation and construction, and harmonization and unity, 
and perpetuation by the application of intelligence and 
skill and wisdom ; the very results of the eternal maker- 
ship, whose accomplishment is by the wisdom and 
power and all the attributes of the Divine Mind. This 
symbol also meets the primal law of divine symbols, 
viz., that the symbol and the symbolized must be in 
different kingdoms. No symbol of the essential Divine 
Maker could be more complete than "the carpenter's 
son." 

As to the main point of the legend, that the throne of 
the father was by the son stretched out and made to 
meet exactly the royal order, has it not an ample realiza- 
tion in the application to this " son of David " of the 
divine prophecy, a For unto us a child is born, unto us 
a son is given, and the government shall be upon his 
shoulder. . . . Of the increase of his government and 
peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, 
and upon his kingdom to order it and to establish it 
with judgment and with justice, from henceforth even 
forever " ? 



CHAPTER II. 

CONSTKUCTTVE PEINCIPLE UNIVEESAL. 

For every house is builded by some man ; but he that built all things is 
God. — Heb. in. 4. 

LEAVING the apocryphal story, let us glance at the 
constructive principle which pervades the divine 
works themselves, and makes them to be not only fit 
instruments but striking symbols of the Carpenter's Son 
— the grand living and symbolic representative of the 
essential constructiveness of the divine nature. 

The animal germ, so small that a million of them 
may rest on the point of a needle, no sooner comes into 
existence than it begins to build, with marvellous skill, 
a home for itself — though it may be in the tissues and 
vesicles of human nerves. The polyp unites with its 
fellow polypi and builds coral reefs on which navies are 
wrecked and kingdoms are founded. The ant is a 
famous builder. Solomon says: "The conies are a 
feeble folk, but they build their houses in the rocks." 
In his fourth Georgic, Virgil declares the office of the 
home- bee, 

u To fortify the comb, to build the wall, 
To prop the ruins lest the fabric fali." 

The constructions of the bird of the air and the beast 
of the field are celebrated in holy writ. 

7 



8 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

The acorn and the sap build the oak; the zephyr and 
the sunbeam construct the tempest. And when we see 
the constructive power of light, and sound, and elec- 
tricity, and magnetism, and the elements that make up 
earth, and water and atmosphere, we begin to think 
that this constructiveness is the primal law of the forces 
of nature. 

Man is a constructive being so far as he is in his 
normal state. Abnormally he is a destroyer, which is his 
unnaturalness. He is a material builder. He builds 
houses, and bridges, and roads, and factories, and con- 
stitutions and governments, and posterity — the Greek 
phrase, tsxtwv yevout;, is originally applied to him. He 
himself is physically built. Landon says : " The 
generality of Genoese country-women are strongly 
built " — assuming a Genoese country-woman to be a 
man ! Man is a metaphorical, mental, moral, ideal 
builder. He builds fortune and fame, arguments and 
hopes, character and destiny, for weal or woe, according 
as he builds on the sand or on the rock. So inveterate 
a builder is he, that when he cannot build anywhere 
else, he builds castles in the air! 

Man's art is but the imitation of the building of 
nature, and his science is only certain constructions 
of the principles on which are erected the edifices of 
creation. 

So dominant is this building passion, in the mould 
of which his ideas and conduct and character are cast, 
that no sooner was Cain driven from " the presence of 
the Lord " than he built a city ; aiid the first device oi 



CONSTRUCTIVE PRINCIPLE UNIVERSAL. 9 

man after the flood was to build a tower which should 
defy another such catastrophe on earth. Defeated by 
the confusion of tongues, he began to construct separate 
languages and nationalities. And in what does the 
glory of human history consist if not in the monuments, 
the palaces, the temples, the pyramids, the cities, the 
institutions, the systematized learning, exhumed from 
the earth or flourishing upon it? And worthy of note 
is it, that the oldest and most general human organiza- 
tion has for its symbols the implements of the builder's 
craft, and is known by the name of Free-masons, who, 
by the way, claim Solomon the royal builder of the 
first temple, and the greatest symbol of "the Carpenter's 
Son/' as their " First Most Excellent Grand Master." 

Angels are inspired by the same constructive power, 
and when they become demons they employ this faculty 
to construct destruction, as Milton sings : 

" Nor aught avail'd him now 
To have built in heaven high towers, nor did he 'scape 
By all his engines, but was headlong sent, 
With his industrious crew, to build in hell." 

And whence this universal building principle? God 
is the great essential and eternal builder of the universe. 
I emphasize builder. Some one calls the worlds God's 
thoughts. The truth is more exactly expressed thus, 
li Every house is builded by some man, but he that built 
all things is God." God does not only create, he 
builds. He did not call into existence the whole world, 
he built it. He built it upon the same principles of 



10 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

mathematics and mechanics that the throne, the palace, 
the temple is built on. Some say that it was built in six 
days; others, in 200,000,000 years; but all agree that 
the world was built ! 

Hence the most perfect representation of the divine 
nature was "the carpenter's son," whose life and whose 
death were instruments of the vastest and most glorious 
upbuilding ; and the sum of whose doctrine — on this 
line — was, that the evil principle antipodal to God's 
constructive nature, which had entered the world, would 
be eternally expressed by destroying fire ; and that this 
essential constructiveness of the divine nature would be 
expressed, as I have said and re-said, by this Temple, 
heavenly and eternal, of which he is " the master 
builder." 

I spoke of the germ and acorn, and bird and beast, 
and man and angel being builders. But their con- 
structiveness is only the impress of the divine con- 
structiveness wrought into the constitution of his crea- 
tures, that they might reflect this essential attribute of 
their Creator, and have stamped upon their face, as the 
mission of their existence, the service and symboliza- 
tion of the great symbol of the divine energy, " the 
carpenter's son/' by whom all these ten thousand times 
ten thousand workers, God-ordained and God-marked 
as his servants, are actually and incessantly employed 
for the erection of the referred-to Temple, universal 
and eternal, the model of which, let me say with 
reverence, is the Divine being himself, in whom all 
live and move, and have their being. Hence God's 



CONSTRUCTIVE PRINCIPLE UNIVERSAL. 11 

image, man, was fearfully and wonderfully made, not 
merely as a kind of creator, maker, builder, ruler, but 
also a sort of microcosmic Temple of whose restored 
nature it is written, " Ye also as lively stones are built 
up, a spiritual house .... builded together for 
an habitation of God through the Spirit." And hence, 
the Son of man said to his enemies, referring to his 
human life, i( Destroy this Temple and in three days I 
will raise it up." The Jews thought he referred to 
their Temple which had been " forty and six years in 
building," but they knew not of that temple of which 
Paul said, "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, 
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If any 
man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy ; 
for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are," — 
a temple which was a living miniature of that Temple 
eternal and divine, of which Solomon's temple was a 
material symbol. 



CHAPTEK III. 

PKEVAILING SUFFEKING AND DEATH. 

The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until 
now, — Rom. viii. 22. 

THE office of the Carpenter's Son was not only to do, 
but to endure and to die. Suffering was not 
a part of his essential self as was his construc- 
tiveness. But, it was a part of his vicarious experi- 
ence and accomplishment, as necessary as his work of 
edification. It was the corner-stone of the great edifi- 
cation. And, because of its awful mysteriousness, as well 
as its unsurpassed momentousness, it has as profound 
reason to be represented in the very frame-work of 
nature as the constructiveness of the divine nature. 
And does it not seem, apart from Bible-doctrine, almost, 
if not quite, as far-reaching ? There is no created life 
in this world without suffering and death. Life itself 
is scientifically defined as a combination of faculties for 
the resistance of death. Looking beyond our narrow 
world, we see this evil everywhere abounding. The 
economy of creation and construction, as well as of 
universal restitution, seems inwrought with this terrible 
experience. So far as can be read from nature, destruc- 
tion appears co-extensive with creation. Where is the 
creature, animate or inanimate, not subject to death? 
12 



PREVAILING SUFFERING AND DEATH. 13 

Did not death come before the human race, as geology 
and demonology attest? Has it not invaded the shining 
ranks around the eternal throne? And how much has 
suffering and death to do with the origin and history 
and destiny of the new race on earth? How much has 
death to do with all life — natural, spiritual, everlasting? 
Is not the renewed world to be born out of universal 
death? It is not strange that the human intellect, unen- 
lightened from above, has thought that evil is eternal ; 
that life sprang out of death, as light comes out of 
darkness, and should ask, Can God suffer? To the 
natural mind there can be no more fathomless mystery 
than this inherent experience and state of things terres- 
trial and super-terrestrial. The face of nature, animate 
and inanimate, is stamped with sadness and woe. From 
a human stand-point, the mystery is intensified by the 
fact that the only holy being that ever trod our earth, 
was himself "a man of sorrow, and acquainted with 
grief." Vain is it that Dr. Henry M. Field, in the 
North American Review, August, 1887, urges against 
Col. Robert G. Ingersoll, his striking and beautiful 
argument from the character and teachings of the Car- 
penter's Son. Eead it : 

" All who have made a study of the character and 
teachings of Christ, even those who utterly deny the 
supernatural, stand in awe and wonder before the 
gigantic figure which is here revealed. Renan closes 
his 'Life of -Jesus' with this as the result of his long 
study : ' Jesus will never be surpassed. His worship 
will be renewed without ceasing ; His story (legende) 



14 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

will draw tears from beautiful eyes without end ; His 
sufferings will touch the finest natures ; all the ages will 
proclaim that among the sons of men there has not risen 
a greater than Jesus f while Rousseau closes his im- 
mortal eulogy by saying, i Socrates died like a philoso- 
pher, hut Jesus Christ like a God ! ' 

" Here is an argument for Christianity to which I 
pray you to address yourself. As you do not believe 
in miracles, and are ready to explain everything by 
natural causes, I beg you to tell us how came it to pass 
that a Hebrew peasant, born among the hills of Galilee, 
had a wisdom above that of Socrates or Plato, of Con- 
fucius or Buddha ? This is the greatest of miracles, 
that such a being has lived and died on the earth." 

Cogent and striking as is the argument, the death to 
which it refers, falling in with the universality of suf- 
fering and death, rebuts it, in the mind of skepticism, 
as inconsistent with the point the argument would 
establish. Is this suffering and death so universal that 
even the wisest and best, compared to "a God," cannot 
escape its omnipresent and omnipotent grasp? Does it 
compass the Creator of the Universe ? Can the God of 
true religion suffer and die ? Is sorrow and death more 
wide-spread than moral evil, said to be its source ? If 
they are everlasting, as admitted, why not also eternal ? 
And in view of the shedding of blood being a founda- 
tion principle of universal religion, and a positive com- 
mand of the Almighty himself, Col. Ingersoll actually 
perpetrates the hideous sneer : "What do you think of 
Abraham, Jephthah, Jehovah V y > The good use of this 



PKEVAILING SUFFERING AND DEATH. 15 

bad question, which Mr. Gladstone well rebukes and 
turns bravely against the adversary, {North American 
Review, July 1888,) is, to give the greatest emphasis to 
the fact — the most terrible fact of this suffering and 
death, which sweeps over the trinity of worlds, earth, 
and heaven and hell ! 

But, deep and dark as this mystery is, it is as expli- 
cable as the universality of the constructive element of 
nature. It is not perfectly explained by the existence 
of moral evil, though without moral evil there might 
have been no pain and death. It cannot be thus ex- 
plained, because suffering and death may be the expres- 
sion of the noblest virtues, may consist with the pro- 
foundest satisfaction, and be the companion of absolute 
and perfect holiness. But, may it not be expounded by 
the fact that the atonement wrought by the Carpenter's 
Son, involving the costliest blood and exceeding sorrow, 
was wrapped up with the love-nature of this eternal 
being as truly as his essential constructiveness, the Lamb 
being slain before the foundation of the world ? And 
widespread nature, stamped with the divine constructive- 
ness, is also stamped with this eternal idea and purpose 
and plan and fact of sorrow and death, in order to pre- 
pare for, and to be sympathetic with, the world's greatest 
event, and to reflect the crowning glory of the great lover 
and sufferer of the universe. As for the human race, 
they must be, not only " workers together with him," 
but "sufferers with him/' in order to be glorified with 
.him. They are to know the fellowship of Christ's suf- 
ferings and death, as a part of their edification into the 



16 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

likeness of their Lord, whose passive virtues were most 
conspicuous as representative of the most glorifying pa- 
tience and long-suffering of the divine nature. God is 
not only the world's maker : it is written " God is love." 
Thus the universe was designed to be symbolic, not only 
of the divine building-essence, represented in the Car- 
penter's Son, but of the eternally ordained Carpenter's 
Son crucified, whom Holman Hunt does not paint 
merely as the young artisan of Nazareth, but with out- 
stretched arms throwing on the wall the figure of a 
cross ! The dedication of Solomon's symbolic Temple 
was signalized by his sacrificing, as it is written, "sheep 
and oxen that could not be told or numbered for mul- 
titudes." 



CHAPTER IY. 

THE SYMBOL— SOLOMON. 
A shadow of things to come. — Heb. x. 1. 

IN the history of our race there have been two re- 
nowned builders representing the Carpenter's Son — 
Noah, the builder of that antediluvian ship, in which 
a part of the material of human nature was saved 
for reedification ; and the royal builder of the first 
Temple, which was to symbolize the reconstructed and 
more glorious Temple and kingdom whose throne, like 
the throne in the legend, stretched out by Joseph's son, 
was to be an enlargement of the throne of Solomon's 
father; whose headstone was to be brought out with 
shoutings, " Grace, grace upon it;" and whose foundations 
were to be laid in the blood of its builder — strikingly 
represented by the countless bloody offerings of Solo- 
mon's Temple, the key-note to whose essential and per- 
petual service of blood was given at its dedication, of 
which it is written, "And Solomon offered a sacrifice of 
peace-offerings which he offered unto the Lord, two and 
twenty thousand oxen and a hundred and twenty thou- 
sand sheep. So the king and all the children of Israel 
dedicated the house of the Lord." 

That Solomon, as the builder of the Temple, was a 
symbol of the great Architect of the universe, repre- 
2 17 



18 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

sented in the Carpenter of Nazareth there is cumulative 
evidence. 

His names Jedidiah and Solomon, meaning the Be- 
loved and Peace, how suggestive of the " Beloved of the 
Father/' "the Prince of Peace ! " 

His extraordinary gift was wisdom — the very name 
by which the worlds were made — which gift was given 
him not as a part of himself, but, as the gift of tongues 
and prophecy were given to apostles and prophets, as 
something added to the real character for a specific pur- 
pose. Hence, while Solomon was the wisest of men, 
he committed abominable follies, just as apostles and 
prophets were never equal in themselves to the inspira- 
tion of their tongues and pens. Solomon's follies were 
allowed that it might appear that his wisdom was not 
personal but symbolic. 

Solomon was born and succeeded to David's throne 
in order that he might build the Temple. His father 
said to him, " Take heed now, for the Lord hath chosen 
thee to build an house for the sanctuary ; be strong and 
do it." Hence, almost all the preparations and direc- 
tions of David for his succeeding son had reference to 
this building, which was the signalizing work of Solo- 
mon's reign. 

The Temple itself was symbolic — " a figure for the 
time then present" — symbolic as to its departments 
and offices and ceremonies, symbolic in its silent con- 
struction, in its materials brought from afar, in the 
multitudes engaged in its erection, and most especially 
in its sacrifices of the lamb of atonement, for which it 



THE SYMBOL — SOLOMON. 19 

was mainly erected. Its divinely-given model suggested 
that it was a symbol ; but the divine declaration is that 
it was "a shadow of good things to come." And the 
Temple a symbol, why not its builder ? 

And was Solomon's shocking fall symbolic of the 
Carpenter's Son falling a victim to the powers of sin 
and hell, that hung him up as a malefactor between two 
thieves on the accursed tree as a lasting spectacle to 
heaven and earth ? 

I need not refer to the tender-aged Solomon's saying, 
when he ascended the throne, " I am but a child ;" and 
the Carpenter's Son being a child indeed when he 
appeared first in the temple ; and to Solomon's Temple 
lasting in its completeness the number of years that the 
Master-builder tabernacled in the flesh. But I must 
refer to the more significant, if not conclusive fact, that 
these momentous words of God referring to Solomon, 
are expressly applied in the epistle to the Hebrews to 
the Christ who is often called the son of David, " He 
shall be my son and I will be his father." The whole 
passage reads : " He shall build a house for my name, 
and he shall be my son and I will be his father, and I 
will establish his throne over Israel forever." 

And was not Solomon's glory in this fact of his being 
the symbol of the great architect and builder of the 
world ? 

There was glory in his riches, which were greater 
than the riches of any living man ; glory in his wisdom, 
for he was wiser than all the wise men of the east; 
glory in his reign of peace, his luxurious court, his 



20 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

splendid structures and cities, and his world-wide fame 
which attracted to him the kings of the earth; great 
was the glory of the house which he built unto the 
Lord, as the only spot on earth where there was a general 
localization of religious thoughts and sentiments with 
regard to the true God, and a visible manifestation of 
Jehovah, and whither representatives from all nations 
were to go to worship — a house which billions of money 
and the best architectural skill made more splendid than 
the Athenian Parthenon, the Ephesian Temple of Diana, 
the Olympian, or Roman Capitoline Temple of Jupiter — 
perhaps the most splendid edifice on the face of the 
earth ! The glory of all this was great. But above all 
this glory of his person, his court, his works, his reign, 
and the Temple itself, was the glory that all these gifts 
and possessions were designed and used to make Solo- 
mon the most glorious symbol of the universal builder 
and architect! 

This makes Solomon a central figure of the world's 
history. This connects him with the constructive prin- 
ciple of the universe in all its varied departments ; of 
which principle he himself was the most distinguished 
human illustration as the architect and builder of the 
more perfect model of the kingdom of heaven. There 
were other symbols of the maker of the heavens and 
the earth — symbols of some quality of his nature, some 
doctrine of his truth, some event of his reign on earth. 
But this man symbolized the Maker himself in his most 
comprehensive attributes and plans and executions ! 
Hence, if the glory that invested Solomon seems almost 



THE SYMBOL — SOLOMON. 21 

supernatural, it was not more glorious than was meet in 
view of his God-symbolizing office ! 

But why this consideration of the symbol Solomon ? 
Attention is directed to the great symbol in order to 
elevate to the greater symbolized —to the symbolized 
Master-builder, who, prompted by that constructive and 
benevolent instinct of the divine nature represented in 
the countless works of his hand, whereby all things were 
created for the happiness of the creature and the glory 
of the Creator, undertook according to an eternal plan to 
realize by his own personal labors and sacrifices, with 
the co5peration of the other persons of the Godhead and 
the subordination of the divinely derived constructive 
principle of all creatures, a perfect and perpetual temple 
of worship and praise, in which should be gathered all 
that honor God, and which should resound with halle- 
lujahs to Him that sitteth upon the throne forever I 

The use of this symbol is to induce the intelligent 
seeker after truth, as Solomon was, to study the autobi- 
ographies of the great Master-builder — nature, provi- 
dence and revelation — wherein all available truth is 
found ; and to consecrate all studies, whether physical 
or metaphysical, artistic or scientific, philological or 
philosophical, ethnological or theological, typical or anti- 
typical, to the energizing and directing of the inherent 
and ineradicable constructive principle of his nature — 
so industriously, so earnestly employed for mere present 
and perishing upbuilding— to this God-ordained up- 
building, personal, social, spiritual, ecclesiastical, national, 
universal, everlasting, divine ! Great was the glory of 



22 the carpenter's son. 

Solomon; but of the least of the Master-builder's works 
— the lily of the field — he himself said, " Solomon in 
all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Great 
was his wisdom ; but, declared the Master, " Behold a 
greater than Solomon is here ! " — even the builder and 
architect of that temple universal and everlasting, of 
w 7 hom Solomon, with his splendid greatness, was only a 
dim shadow, a perishing symbol. 



CHAPTER V. 

ON EAKTH. 

LET us take a general view of this being as he walked 
among the children of men. 

HIS FAMILY. 

Who is my mother or my brethren f — Mark iii. 33. 

In the first chapter of his biography we see a record 
of his family running through more than fifty gen- 
erations — from Joseph to Abraham. Indeed, it runs 
back, as another biographer shows, to Adam himselfo 
This makes his descent more than royal — it makes it 
intensely human. He is identified thus with the whole 
race of man. He is the living link of the human 
brotherhood universal. Nothing that concerns man 
can he be indifferent to. Hence, his whole life w T as 
devoted to the interests of his fellows — feeding, healing, 
teaching gratuitously, laboriously, and despite lack of 
appreciation and even gross injustice. He was the 
realization of the ideal when God said, " Let us make 
man in our own image." Many are the features of 
interest in his family-record, but the feature of greatest 
interest is that the culmination of the grand descent 
from patriarchs, prophets and royal names, should be 
in Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth. 

But the same chapter of his biography declares the 

23 



24 the carpenter's son. 

stranger things, that his mother was a virgin, and his 
father the Holy Ghost. Hence, while he was subject 
to Mary and Joseph for most of his earthly life, and in 
his death, made provision for his widowed mother, he 
did not hesitate to leave them in his childhood to attend 
to the business of his Father in heaven, and to exclaim 
with regard to true worshippers of God, " Behold my 
mother and my brethren ! " The trend of his whole 
career on earth was illustrative of his own exposition of 
his terrestrial mission, "Lo, I come to do thy will, 
O God." What that will is, the world's history of 
progressive edification and the universe's prospective 
reconstruction, all by this divine son and universal 
Architect, is a sufficient reply. 

But this does not exhaust his family relations. There 
is another family besides the human and divine, com- 
posed of the worshippers of God, whether on earth or 
in heaven, a spiritual family as opposed to the carnal 
family of fallen angels and unbelieving men, and he is 
of this family the acknowledged and worshipped head 
and founder. 

Hence the hostility of such sin-desperadoes as Herod 
the Great — representing the destructive element of moral 
evil — who would slay him; the terror with which he 
filled demons, who knew his constructive and living 
power better than Herod did ; and hence, his many 
spiritual and mysterious acts, and institutions, and doc- 
trines, as for example, his baptism, the Lord's Supper, 
his forty days' fast and temptation, his revolutionary 
sermon on the mount, his preaching the advent of the 



ON EARTH. 25 

kingdom of heaven, his bloody sweat and agony of 
Gethsemane, his crucifixion on Calvary with the mystic 
words, " It is finished." Hence, the many prophecies 
with regard to his advent, the coming of the Magi to 
worship him, the adoration of the angels, the confession 
representing all worshippers on earth, " My Lord and 
my God," and his last, and grand commission to all ages 
of reconstructed humanity, to make his name " great 
unto the ends of the earth." 

HIS NAME. 

He called his name Jesus. — Matt. i. 25. 

"What is in a name?" The grammarian may give 
one answer, the historian another, and the philosopher 
still another. But the divine view of names seems to 
imply that the person himself is involved in his name 
when divinely given. Hence the baptismal formula, 
" Into the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit," 
means into the Divine Trinity. So the words of Luke, 
"the number of names together were about one hundred 
and twenty," Actsi. 15, which signifies that the number 
of disciples present was about one hundred and twenty. 
Are less significant, for instance, the names already 
mentioned, Adam, Solomon, Jesus? The last name is 
certainly synonymous with the named himself, who, as 
his name denotes, is the Saviour of the fallen and 
ruined race of man. This is confirmed by his other 
name, Emmanuel, which is interpreted, " God with us." 
And might not his many appellations, Wonderful, 
Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of 



26 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ, be paraphrased the Won- 
derful Planner and Almighty Maker and Generator — 
the Peaceful Ruler of a kingdom founded on the life 
and death of the anointed Son of man and Son of God? 
Nor are any of the elements of these comprehensive 
titles lacking in the descriptive and all comprehending 
title of b zexvwv in the broad sense of the dpxtrexzoj v 
of, not only the original universe, but of the new 
heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteous- 
ness, to be realized in the dispensation of the fulness of 
times when all things in heaven and in earth shall be 
gathered together in him, their life being hid with 
Christ in God. 

HIS EARLY LIFE. 

And Jesus increased in stature and in wisdom, and in favor with God 
and man. — Luke ii. 52. 

What must have been the early life of such a being ? 
What the inner life of consciousness, of meditation, of 
purpose, of varied and unutterable experience ; .what the 
outer life of fidelity to duty, of holy service, of pre- 
paration for his great life-mission ! We are prepared 
for the statements that he was " subject to his parents," 
and that he " increased in wisdom and stature, and in 
favor with God and man." Both tables of the law 
were perfectly kept, which was one of his instruments 
for the world's restoration. Nor would it have seemed 
strange if, in connection with his physical development 
affirmed, it had been stated that his carpentry had made 
him famous for its fidelity and perfection. These 



ON EARTH. 27 

works of his hands, connected in consciousness with the 
analogous and more momentous works of his future 
mission, must have been invested with something of 
sacredness which should elevate manual toil among 
men, and which, perhaps, allies in heart this sacred 
mechanic with the heart of a world toiling for the 
necessities of life, and to which he would be a solace, 
model and inspiration. And may we not dare the 
imagination that, while he was driving the symbolic 
plane or saw, or wielding the equally symbolic hammer 
or mallet, he was in holy contemplation of the mammoth 
construction to be wrought by the cross of Calvary? 

PICTURE OF HIM. 

Is not this the carpenter's son f — Matt. xiii. 55. 

Hunt's painting of the young mechanic stretching 
himself and throwing on the wall the shadow of a cross, 
to which reference has been made, has been adversely 
criticised, but it illustrates several points suggested by 
the early life of the Carpenter's Son. 

It illustrates the duty of labor. It was a Jewish 
maxim, that the man who does not teach his son a 
trade teaches him to steal. God commands, " Six days 
shalt thou labor." Not only self-support, but labor for 
others is at the foundation of manly character. Without 
it and the sterling qualities implied, ornamentation of 
body or mind is as a wreath around a column veneered 
and hollow. 

It illustrates the dignity of labor. The noblest 
minds — those who have been masters through the ages, 



28 the carpenter's son. 

by observing the divine law, " whosoever will be chief 
among you let him be your servant " — have been the 
most laborious of men. God is the great laborer whose 
workshop, as we have seen, is the universe. His record- 
book opens sublimely, " In the beginning God created 
the heaven and the earth." 

The picture suggests, by the presence of the cross, 
how broad may be the application of the laws of the 
world to the science and art of the mechanic's vocation. 
Those tools on the carpenter's bench were handled by 
his intelligence and skill, in making, perchance, the 
plow and the yoke, in building, perchance, the bridge 
and the house, in accordance with principles of mathe- 
matics and mechanics known by the workman to be 
involved in the construction of the globe — the creation 
of the physical world, principles known also by him to 
be sometimes analogous to, and always in harmony 
with laws of the metaphysical world, in which that 
instrument shadowed on the Avail was to work out a 
construction destined to plow up and subdue the ends of 
the earth, to bridge over a fathomless abyss, and to erect 
a house not made with hands eternal in the heavens. 
Though infidel, the people of Nazareth seemed to con- 
nect the mechanics and the miracles of Jesus as they 
ask, " Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary ? 
What wisdom is this which is given unto him that even 
such mighty works are wrought by his hands ?" Note 
the expression, mighty works wrought by his hands. 
The artist was not so far astray when he associated on 
his canvas the carpenter and the cross. 



ON EARTH. 29 

But there was a characteristic of the Carpenter's Son 
misrepresented by this painting, if the mechanic's 
stretching himself was designed to suggest any relaxa- 
tion of mind. His mind was never relaxed. It was 
intently and constantly fixed on the gigantic work he 
came to do. This explains many of his paradoxical and 
parabolical doctrines, and expounds his often strange 
and superhuman conduct, which confused his friends, 
made his family think that he was " beside himself/' 
and gave occasion to his malicious adversaries to publish 
that he was possessed of the devil. He was the imper- 
sonation of faith which is "the substance of things 
hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." 

HIS PUBLIC CAKEEK. 

Who went about doing good. — Acts x. 38. 

When the Carpenter appeared publicly in his mission, 
he announced it to be the establishment of a kingdom 
spiritual, universal and everlasting, upon his dual son- 
ship with man and God, which gave efficacy to his own 
voluntary and substitutionary immolation. 

His workman's garb proclaimed him a man of the 
people. He knew that human revolutions do not begin 
at the apex but at the base of society; that the man who 
accomplishes great enterprises must lay hold of the 
people. He had been called by Simeon " the glory of 
his people Israel," and he manifested abundantly his 
zeal for them, for example, by his cleansing the temple 
with a scourge of cords. But he was also called by 
this man of God, " a light to lighten the Gentiles." 



30 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

Hence, his genealogy was traced — as has been seen — 
not only to David and Abraham but to Adam, and 
even to God. He was a Jew but he was more than a 
Jew — he was a man ; and a man fit to be the head of the 
human race. His associates were Peter and James and 
John, not because they were fishermen, and thus training 
to be fishers of men, but because they were men — not 
dignitaries whose manhood was in danger of being 
swallowed up by perfunctory observances, but men 
simple and outright, of whose infirmities he was touched 
with a feeling, and with whose temptations he w r as also 
tempted. He thus identified himself with the essence 
of humanity, which was laying a corner-stone in the 
foundation he came to lay. Hence, when he was born, 
angels shouted, "on earth peace, good will toward 
men;" and he delighted to call himself "the Son of 
man." 

And never man spake and did as this man. His 
words were as plow-shares tearing up the old founda- 
tions of false philosophy and religion, with regard to 
man's duty and destiny, and teaching that his only 
hope was in reconciliation with God and restoration to 
his image, made possible by vicarious atonement and 
the regenerating and sanctifying influences of the Holy 
Spirit. His deeds amazed the people, but they were 
only prophetic of greater things, as cleansing man of 
the malady of sin, hushing the storming passions of the 
nations, and exorcising the god of this world by the 
bloody sweat of Gethsemane, and the awful tragedy of 
Calvary, which not only rocked the earth and blotted 



ON EAETH. 31 

out the sun and shook the dead out of their graves, but 
rent the vail of the Temple from top to bottom, and 
thus declared that free access to God was now secured 
to the race of man. He established his sonship with 
God as well as with man, which gave all efficacy to his 
sacrifice, and "upon this rock" he said, "I will build 
my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail 
against it." 

But in the pursuit of his building mission, he made 
also selection of material on which he was to work. As 
might be supposed, this selection was from the lower 
ranks of life. Thus he taught that, according to the 
economy of grace, the most favored of this world are 
not adjudged as necessarily the most favored of the 
world to come. He taught thus also, that the humblest 
and lowest need not despair, but may come in hope to 
the Father above and be wrought into the great fabric 
of his praise. "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs 
is the kingdom of heaven." 

This material had to be prepared — prepared, by con- 
version and temptation and suffering, for the moral state 
required by the builder of this kingdom. Hence, the 
builder himself taught them, not only by rules for real 
life and godliness, but by his personal example in 
temptation and suffering, whereby, they following him, 
were to be perfectly adapted to the end of their election. 
The sum of his spiritual code was love to God and 
our fellow-man, which he himself illustrated by a life 
worshipful and benevolent, and by patient submission 
to the will of his Father in heaven. He broadened 



32 the cabpenter'k son. 

their views of duty by showing that their sympathies 
and labors were to be co-extensive with the divine 
interest and love which wide as the wo^d itself. 

And he began the wori? 1 of construction by '• o 
the hearts and minds of his few followers on great > 
general principles of universal application, which was 
to be the model of construction , under the guidance of 
the Spirit, unto the end of time and unto the ends of 
the earth. 

In order to establish his authority for this selection 
and preparation of material, and for this work of recon- 
struction of the human race on principles above those 
involved in the relations of family, and business, and 
society and human government, he performed works 
that no man could do, the crowning one of which was 
his own resurrection from the dead and ascension to 
the glory which he had enjoyed with the Father-worker 
before the world was ushered into creation. At his 
ascension he sent out his fellow-workmen to gather in 
" lively stones" for this spiritual house of the Lord. 
And some of the most gifted of them expounded it 
broadly, in the light of the divine purposes and pre- 
destinations, the offices of the persons of the Godhead, 
the theocracies and theophanies vouchsafed in the 
past, the Jaws and ordinations, the promises, prophecies 
and providences recorded in the sacred Scriptures, but 
specially, in the light of the great instrument of its 
erection, " the wisdom of God and the power of God." 
One of these workmen frequently refers to the work in 
such express terms as " ye are God's building," " ye are 



ON EARTH. 33 

no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens 
with the saints and of the household of God, and are 
built upon the foundatio, He apostles and prophets, 

Ciirist himself beL. & cue chief corner-stone, in 
whom all the building fitly framed together groweth 
unto an holy temple in the Lord, in whom ye also are 
builded together for an habitation of God through the 
Spirit." — Eph. ii. 19-22. And another has given a 
gorgeous delineation of its laborious upbuilding on earth 
and triumphal completion in heaven. 

But the Master Builder did not go from the earth 
until he had promised his faithful workmen, "And 
lo, I am with you alway, even unto the consummation 
of the age." 

3 



CHAPTEE VI. 

IN NATUKE. 

All in all. — 1 Cor. xv. 28. 

THE tsxtujv of earth was the rhrcDv of heaven, by 
whom are all things that are made in heaven and 
in earth. In this universal edification were involved 
purpose, plan, principles and phenomena. This implies 
that there was a period when there was no existence 
except the divine. The pantheist who involves the 
idea of Deity in the works of nature, denies this, as do 
other deists who hold to the eternity of matter. But 
logically and chronologically the rest of the universe 
may be stripped away from the divine existence, and 
the great I Am stand alone in the glory and tri- 
plicity of his being — living in the blessedness and ex- 
cellence of his own conscious and cogitating and sentient 
being. In this being, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, 
there was formed, at some period in the distant past, 
with regard to a widespread nature — physical and meta- 
physical — a definite purpose. 

THE PUKPOSE. 

The purpose was that the divine being should not be 
alone in the universe, that there should be other exis- 
tences, material and immaterial ; and that these objects 
should be so impressed with the attributes of the divine 
34 



IN NATURE. 35 

nature that the intelligence created in the image of the 
divine nature should apprehend these attributes and 
thus learn the nature of the self-existent, everlasting 
and creative God. This was the end of creation ; for 
there could be no greater good to the creature than the 
knowledge of the creator, the contemplation of whom 
would elevate him more and more into the likeness of 
Divinity. These attributes were to be reflected in nature, 
physical and metaphysical. But there is much in the 
divine being which cannot be known by mental obser- 
vation and excogitation. There is much that can be 
known only by experience, and much by the experience 
of what is not blessed, but distressing and evil. Love 
can be known only by experience of love, and the com- 
fort of mercy and grace only by the experience of sorrow 
and guilt. It was in the divine purpose, therefore, that 
moral evil should be permitted to enter the universe to 
the end that his mercy and grace might be exhibited 
and experienced in deliverance therefrom. Thus it was 
that his vast purpose of creation compassed not only the 
creation but the re-creation of the world. In the pur- 
pose there was unity in the will of the Trinity, who 
were to be engaged unitedly and severally in the execu- 
tion. Whether there was any period of duration in the 
purposing, or whether any period elapsed between the 
purpose and the plan, who among the creatures of God 
can tell ? 

THE PLAN. 

The plan of the universe was of a two- fold character 
— it was to be essential and phenomenal. As to essen- 



36 the carpenter's son. 

tial nature, the will of God with regard to the universe 
was so fixed that it might be defined by the name of 
order or law, relating to light and sound, and heat 
and cold, and cohesion and repulsion, and gravity and 
electricity, and all the rest comprehended in what man 
calls physical science ; and this divine will or order was 
to hold perpetually, and to permeate in every direction 
necessary for the support and continuance of the most 
varied and the most useful constitution of things. And 
these essential principles were to be one of the objects of 
human search and investigation, in order to the edifica- 
tion of human nature. This system of order or law 
may be conceived as apart from the phenomena by which 
it is expressed, as a system far-reaching, complex and per- 
fect; just as the nervous system of the human body may 
be conceived in the image of the body, yet as something 
complete in the conception as apart from the body. In 
this essential part of the ideal was comprehended every 
event possible in the physical universe in every depart- 
ment, so long as the physical universe should last. 

But as the spirit distinct from the body is clothed 
upon with flesh and bone and sinew, as an encasement 
as well as an exponent and index, so this system of 
essences was represented by the outward things of nature 
in the various forms of matter, more or less gross and 
endless in variety, as land and water, and wood and 
metal, and wind and gas, and a countless number of 
substances compassed in the kingdoms of matter, brute, 
vegetable, animal, human, angelic. These phenomena 
were designed for the immediate observation and use of 



IN NATURE. 37 

the intelligent creature to be made, who should have 
senses as well as mental and moral powers, and to these 
senses these phenomena were to be addressed for profit 
and for pleasure. 

In this plan intelligent beings were to be created, 
who themselves should be in the image of God and who 
should not only study themselves for the discovery of 
God, but should study all of his works, obvious and 
latent, even to the remotest principles, that he might be 
known and adored. 

And such was to be the relation between this intelli- 
gent creation and the lower orders of creation, over 
which the higher order was to rule, that the fate of the 
higher should be the fate of the lower. This may be 
illustrated in man : if he stands in the image of his 
maker, the whole world should be full of the divine 
glory ; if he falls, the world around him should fall. 
He is the representative of a race and of the house of 
the race, and on his weal or woe depends that of the 
represented world. This was the divine plan for wise 
purposes. But man would fall. This was contemplated 
in the original purpose. And the most important part 
of the plan was, that God himself should become mani- 
fest in the human image of himself, and by a history on 
earth of wondrous kind, work out in the eyes of the 
intelligent universe a restoration far exceeding the origi- 
nal creation and far more reflective of the deep nature 
of God. Thus by the transactions of the t£xt(jdv among 
men the nature of God should be made more perfectly 
known to the uttermost limits of the intelligent universe, 



38 the carpenter's son. 

which, as has been said, was the purpose of the world's 
creation. " God created all things by Jesus Christ to 
the intent that now unto the principalities and powers 
in heavenly places might be known by the Church the 
manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal pur- 
pose, which was purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord . . . 
of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is 
named." 

Here was the ideal essential and phenomenal before 
the great architect of the universe, perfect, practical, 
wide-spread, glorifying, and committed to his Son for 
execution. 

THE CONSTRUCTION. 

Such is the omnipotent power of the rixTwv that he 
might, by a single word, have brought into existence and 
constructed the whole wide-spread universe. Of this 
we have positive proof. When on earth he brought by 
a word the dead to life. And in the beginning he spake 
and there was light, and ho spake and the water and the 
land were separated. But the end of creation must 
never be forgotten, viz., the revelation of the divine 
nature. Hence the work is more gradual and divided into 
parts, that the human mind might apprehend and appre- 
ciate, and thus the impression with regard to the Creator 
be deeper, clearer, and more lasting. Hence we see 
6 rixTcov bringing the rough material of the physical 
universe out of nothing. That is a wonder the more 
wonderful as it is considered. Too wonderful is it for 
the modern Christian scientist, who, wishing to adjust 
this fact of creation to a primal law of physical science, 



IN NATURE. 39 

ex nihilo nihil fit, holds that there is an externity of the 
divine nature as well as an internity, from which all 
material creation was derived without violation of this 
physical postulate. But man need not be more careful 
of the divine honor than is God himself. Enough that 
God created the material for the universe. And all the 
parts of each work are put together so perfectly on the 
principles involved that they are at once harmonious, 
unified, and perpetually united. And may riot the crea- 
tion of our planet be the model for all worlds ? Thus 
worlds are united to worlds, and systems to systems, into 
a harmonious and unified and perpetual universe for the 
reflection of God and the manifestation of his nature. 

On our globe man, in the image of God, is created — 
man dual, male and female, in representation of the per- 
sons of the Godhead and the creative power of God. 
Man is put there, as lord of all the lower creations, 
which is the best representation of the Lord of Glory. 

Thus the natural attributes of Deity are represented 
in the physical, and the mental and moral in the human 
creation, of the grand universe constructed according 
to an eternal purpose and plan of the rixrwv of the 
Gospel. 

But man thus created supposes society and govern- 
ment, art and science, varied knowledge and experience; 
and the realization of all these accessories of his being 
is wrapped up, either in himself or in nature around 
him ; so that he need lack nothing, with proper exercise 
of gifts afforded, to penetrate the recesses of this won- 
derful construction, physical and metaphysical — natural 



40 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

and spiritual — constructed for him by the creative and 
merciful Master Builder of all. 

But this construction of nature must be looked into 
more in detail, as a reflector of the divine nature. Look, 
for a moment, into 

I. Insensate nature — its laws and substances as pre- 
sented in the sciences. 

(1.) Take the exact science of mathematics as under- 
lying and pervading all the rest. Through the whole 
of this science, from the multiplication table to the cal- 
culus, there is the all-pervading principle that there is 
no possibility of solution of problem, or demonstration 
of proposition, without the most absolute accuracy. The 
slightest deviation in number or matter defeats the 
desired result. This principle pervades not only pure 
and abstract mathematics, but it holds good in all the 
applications of mathematics to other sciences of physics 
or of business, whether chemistry or astronomy, whether 
commerce or mechanics. In fact, it pervades all the 
departments of nature, not only physical but also meta- 
physical, moral and spiritual. Now, what could illus- 
trate more perfectly than this the absolute rectitude of 
the Creator of all ? It indicates that his being is incon- 
sistent with the least error or wrong. He is and must 
be absolutely perfect as to the rightness of his nature. 
When Pythagoras based creation on numbers, he pre- 
sented only a symbolic truth of the universe being 
founded on the absolute and eternal rectitude of its 
Creator, which is everywhere displayed in the all- 
pervading laws of exact mathematics. 



IN NATURE. 41 

(2.) Take the sciences of botany and natural history. 
The flora and fauna of millions of variety, scattered 
promiscuously and with apparent infinite confusion over 
the surface of the earth, are by these sciences collected 
into a comparatively few gen uses and species, so that 
what seems " confusion worst confounded," is reduced 
to perfect order. How strikingly does this indicate the 
perfect system and order of the divine government, 
which has every event classified and labelled and serv- 
ing its pre-ordained mission in the accomplishment of 
the great purpose of creation, notwithstanding the events 
of history and the circumstances of life seem to be hap- 
hazard and confused and incapable of any orderly classi- 
fication. '0 rixTcov gives us a picture of the truth of 
his universal government, despite the appearances to 
the contrary, in these sciences of botany and natural 
history, as in other sciences of man. 

(3.) Take the science of geology. Take the fact of 
the hundreds of millions of years through which our 
globe has been forming by the accretion of particles. 
This globe is one of the least and perhaps one of the 
youngest of worlds. What, then, the greatest and the 
oldest as to their gradual formation ? How suggestive 
of the age of the t£xtojv. And what a picture does it 
afford of the divine patience and, hence, of all the 
passive qualities of Deity. How could the enduring 
and long-suffering Spirit of the great Maker of all be 
more perfectly represented ? What may not be expected 
of his mercy, what of his wrath, what of the gradual 
accomplishment of all the purposes of his will ? 



42 the carpenter's son. 

(4.) Glance at mineralogy and meteorology, and what 
do we see ? 

(a.) The hidden metal and precious stone, so hard to 
find, so difficult to get, how well does it portray the 
deep things of God, which the unearnest never suspect, 
which only the most diligent, and those that have known 
the hammer and fire of severe experience, ever attain 
unto in any degree. But none shall ever see the whole 
of the divine nature. 

(6.) Look at the mysteries of the wind, of the w T eather. 
None of these movements of nature is without obedience 
to law as fixed as the throne of God. Yet who can 
understand them ? This was designed by the rixrcov 
in the structure of physical nature. It is the reply to 
the query, Who by searching can find out God, can find 
out God to perfection ? 

(5.) Take astronomy. Take the most phenomenal 
presentation of the lights of heaven bending over us 
everywhere and forever, and how could the great archi- 
tect and builder have conceived and constructed any- 
thing more pictorially perfect of the divine omniscience 
and omnipresence and everlastingness ? David was no 
astronomer and was not lost in the laws of attraction 
and repulsion, in the dimensions and distances, in the 
weight and reciprocal influences of worlds. He looked 
up with a child's eyes and sang, " The heavens declare 
the glory of God!" And in the results of these re- 
volving spheres, as to day and night, the seasons of the 
year, the eclipses of each other, w T hat side-pictures have 
we of the truths of life and death, of the divine care 



IN NATURE. 43 

and benevolence, and of the folly of judgment by mere 
appearance of things ! 

II. Glance now at the construction and constitution 
of animal, human, and angelic nature. 

(1.) See in the gradation of life from the animalcule 
to the arch-angel what the distance between the highest 
creature and the Son of the Creator ! 

(2.) See in the universal distinctions, the all-pervad- 
ing law of life from death, and learn of the eternally 
decreed sacrifice of the rixrwv and the eternity of ruin 
as a means of an everlasting life ! Devils gave the most 
powerful testimony of the Godship of the Carpenter's 
Son! 

(3.) See how near is Lucifer to Gabriel, the devil to 
the angel, and tremble for self and for the t£xtwv on 
the mount of temptation ! Think not of heaven as an 
eternal and inevitable incarceration in bliss, whence 
there is no possible outgoing unto evil, but as a state 
of moral fixedness to do and be the will of the great 
dp^tzixrcDv. 

III. Look at the plan of nature as a whole. Con- 
sider it in its origin as a perfect mirror of the great 
Maker; deplore sin as the tarnisher of this great 
revelation, yet learn from it of God, as we may, and 
rejoice at the prospect of its future restoration and its 
perfect and eternal revelation of the creator and pre- 
server of all, to the glory of the Son, " from whom 
and unto whom are all things and by whom all things 
consist." 



CHAPTER VIL 

IN THE BIBLE. 

These are they which testify of me. — John v. 39. 

IN the Scriptures many are the hidden things of this 
being; hence the command, " Search the Scriptures." 
The earth and the sea combined are not more full of 
treasures than the oracles of God are of " the truth as 
it is in Jesus." But while we are to search for him, as 
for silver and gold, how obviously is he seen in many 
parts, yea, in every department of the world. Who 
walked and talked with the first man and woman in 
" the cool of the day " in Eden ? Who was predicted 
as the bruiser of the serpent's head? Of whom was 
Noah a symbol, and who was it that " preached to the 
spirits in prison" in the days of Noah? Was he not 
the seed of whom the promise to Abraham was given ? 
And who was it that appeared to Joshua on the plains 
of Jericho, and to Manoah the parent of the giant 
Samson? I need not recall the I Am in the burning 
bush of Midian, the Messiah of the Psalms of David, 
and of the predictions of the prophets. In the New 
Testament who else is seen by the eye of faith, from 
Matthew to Revelation, but the tixrmy of whom all the 
Scriptures, in every part and of every age, clearly 
testify? 

And the same spirit of grace and severity that 
44 



IN THE BIBLE. 45 

marked his personal character, and the same end of 
restoring the right relations between God and man, 
are they not everywhere apparent throughout the word 
binding, as by silver cords, its varied parts into one 
great whole ? 

And wonderful is this divine work of which b rixrwv 
is not only the subject but the constructor. Wonderful 
is the Master Builder's construction in nature, but more 
wonderful is it in the Bible. It is more wonderful: 

1st. Because while in the former the whole construc- 
tion is under his hand alone, and his mind and spirit 
are naturally impressed on the work of his own hand, 
in the latter he works through others, in different ages 
and of different degrees of moral and mental character, 
and yet he makes this structure a perfect representation 
of the Creator. 

2d. Because the representation in this structure relates 
to the being of God, more mysterious and more gracious, 
and more essential than in that of nature. It is a more 
advanced — a higher revelation of Deity, and not less 
symmetrical, and harmonious and unified than the con- 
struction of nature. 

And let it be remarked, that a more certain know- 
ledge of this work may be acquired than that of nature. 
For the facts and exposition of nature we have to 
depend upon men, like ourselves, imperfect. For the 
truths of the Bible we may rely upon the author 
himself. 

In the examination of any building or institution, or 
commodity, it is not needful, in order to have a true 



46 the carpenter's son. 

conception of its plan, its genius or its character, to do 
more than to examine component parts of it. Thus 
let us see, from samples taken here and there from 
the Bible, how perfectly it represents the Creator in 
his Son, the beginning and the ending of this revela- 
tion. * 

1. We enter the book in about the middle of it, and 
we hear of one to be the son of a virgin. Nothing 
seems more improbable. But seven hundred years 
after, the Carpenter's Son himself appears, the divinely 
attested Son of the Virgin Mary. Here is a thread in 
this fabric running through centuries and connecting 
the revelation of these centuries. 

2. Again we read of a man brought as a lamb to the 
slaughter. This is marvellous, in Judea where human 
sacrifice was an abomination. But hundreds of years 
after, the Spirit of God bids one of his builders to 
expound this history, and it is written, "Beginning at 
this Scripture, Philip preached unto him, Jesus." Here 
is another thread of the same sort consorting with the 
other, and running through the ages. 

3. But what is this ritual of blood running through 
the Jewish economy, and going back before the flood to 
the first family of the human race ? All through this 
worship, and through all worship, blood, blood, blood. 
How strange! Who will explain this in the Bible 
revelation? John, a chief builder of God explains. 
Seeing the Carpenter's Son coming towards him he 
cries, " Behold the Lamb of God that taketh away the 
sin of the world ! " Here the very extremes of the 



IN THE BIBLE. 47 

Scripture structure are bound together by this revelation 
of the Carpenter's Son. 

4. How strange that the angel of death should not 
visit the Hebrew homes in Egypt, whose door-posts 
were besprinkled with blood. But how plain when we 
read, " Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us." 

5. That story of Jonah in the whale's belly and his 
escape, how it mystified the ages, but how striking and 
useful as expounded by the Carpenter's Son himself, as 
representing his own imprisonment in the bowels of the 
earth for three days, and the great deliverance of his 
resurrection ! 

6. But why go into detail? Hear the rixrwv with 
regard to himself and this construction, "Search the 
Scriptures ... for these are they that testify of 
me." And in order to make plainness more plain he 
illustrates the fact that the Scriptures are constructed 
for the revelation of God in the face of Jesus Christ 
his Son, by a general exposition of the Bible of 
which we have this divinely authorized statement, 
" Beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he ex- 
pounded unto them in all the Scriptures the things 
concerning himself." 

And what are the things in all the Scriptures con- 
cerning the tUtidv ? They are the hidden things of 
God not revealed in nature — more than his omnipotence 
and his eternity, they are the things relating to his 
eternal purposes of grace which are only hinted at in 
nature, which were gradually taught in the older Scrip- 
tures, but which culminated in the earthly life and 



48 the carpenter's son. 

death, and resurrection and ascension of the Carpenter's 
Son, of which we shall see more fully hereafter. Suffice 
it now that the rixriov in the Bible, so unique, so com- 
plete, so harmonious, so perfect and so wonderfully pre- 
served, while the works of man's hands are commonly 
destroyed, is one of the greatest wonders of the uni- 
verse. 

But, though superior to nature, how like nature as a 
structure is this Bible ? 

1st. The whole structure is based on principles as in 
nature, so well defined and so uniform, that these princi- 
ples may be and have been, collected in a science, like 
any natural science, which is called a System of Divinity 
or Theology. 

2d. These principles, like those of nature, are 
expressed in phenomena of history, individual and 
national, human and angelic, natural and spiritual ; of 
poetry and prophecy, of the most varied and divine 
sort ; of doctrine didactic and illustrative, relating to the 
past, the present and the future ; and of symbols without 
number concerning the human and the divine, the 
temporal and the eternal. Take the phenomena of 
nature and compare them with those of revelation, and 
they will not be found more striking and more repre- 
sentative of the principles on which they are founded. 

3d. If it be held that nature is evolved from a 
particle by the power of omnipotence, what a world of 
truth does the Bible present as the fruit of the germ- 
principle, "the seed of the woman shall bruise the 
head of the serpent ! " 



IN THE BIBLE. 49 

The sun of nature comes and goes, and may some day 
sink into everlasting night. But the central light of 
this structure is the Sun of Righteousness, whose rays 
ever shine the same, and which shall be in meridian 
glory when the glory of nature with its sun and moon, 
and stars shall roll up as a scroll and pass away with a 
great noise. The principles and structure of nature are 
temporal, the truths and facts of the Bible are eternal. 
Angels live above the things of our nature, but they 
bend their minds to pry into the things in this construc- 
tion of the Carpenter's Son. We know not of what is 
called heaven, but of what we do know, there is nothing 
higher, nothing broader, nothing deeper, nothing more 
full of glory and of love, than this last and most com- 
plete work of the rixrajv, which we call, by way of 
eminence, The Bible. 

Let it be added, that this work of the rixrcov, like 
his other great works, such as physical and human 
nature, and the experiences of grace, though but a part 
of the great Universal Temple of truth and of fact 
that he is rearing, is like each of these great works 
represented as if a temple itself. As the complete 
chapels under the dome of St. Peter's Cathedral, so 
are these grand works, little temples in the universal 
and eternal house of his hand. David's conception of 
nature is as " the handiwork of God — a Temple for the 
sun ;" and of spiritual worship, " dwelling in the house 
of the Lord forever/' The Carpenter's Son spoke of 
his body as "this temple;" and Paul says of the church, 
" Whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence 
4 



50 THE CAKPENTEE'S SON. 

and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto the end." 
Under the same view is God's Word commonly held. 
A learned professor catching the figure from the Word 
itself says, "The Bible is a grand whole — a Temple 
whose parts are harmonious, whose symmetry is sublime, 
whose finish is divinely perfect, and whose infinite 
spaciousness is filled with the praises of God." Is not 
this the structure of which Solomon says, " Wisdom 
hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven 
pillars, she hath killed her beasts, she hath mingled her 
wine, she hath also furnished her table, she hath sent 
forth her maidens, she crieth upon the highest places of 
the city, Whoso is simple let him turn in hither ; as for 
him that wanteth understanding, she saith to him, 
Come eat of my bread and drink of the wine which I 
have mingled. Forsake the foolish and live, and go 
in the way of understanding . . . The fear of 
the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the know- 
ledge of the Holy is understanding." I need not 
repeat that this wisdom is o r rixrcov, the Alpha and the 
Omega of Divine Revelation. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

IN PKOVIDENCE AND HISTORY. 

The very hairs of your head are all numbered, — Matt. x. 30. 

PROVIDENCE is that divine care over the works 
of his hand, sometimes natural, sometimes super- 
natural, which God bestows in all ages of the world, 
through the agency of the second person of the God- 
head, and which was abundantly illustrated in the history 
of Israel — individual and national. It is not strange 
that many hold that the world and the inhabitants and 
interests thereof are put under a reign of law ; and that 
that law, applied or submitted to by human intelligence, 
is sufficient for the conduct of human affairs; as submis- 
sion to such law by animal and insensate nature suffices 
for the stability and prosperity of the material and ani- 
mal world. Thus it seems to science. But this is not 
the exposition of the divine government, as given in 
the divine word and illustrated in a part of the world's 
history. It was not natural law that brought the world 
into being, and it is not natural law that preserves it and 
provides for all its changes by divine wrath or grace, 
and adapts it specially to the divine purposes. Was it 
natural law that flooded the earth and then ran off the 
waters of the deluge ? Was it natural law that divided 
the waters of the Red Sea and of Jordan for the passage of 
the children of Israel ? Was it natural law that stopped 

51 



52 the carpenter's son. 

the sun over Gibeon and the moon over Ajalon, that 
Joshua might avenge himself upon the enemies of his 
people and of his people's God? And who was the 
divine agent of this superintending rule? Who was 
the I Am that conducted the Hebrews by the pillar of 
cloud and of fire from Egypt to the land of promise ? 
Who was the Angel of the Covenant with whom Jacob 
wrestled until the break of day and would not let go 
until he blessed him ? Who was he "like unto the Son 
of God" that stood with the Hebrew children in the 
fiery furnace of Nebuchadnezzar? The Jehovah of the 
Old Testament is the Jesus of the New, who said plainly, 
"Before Abraham was I<Am." 

Nor is this superintendence less divine when con- 
ducted by means according to natural law than when by 
means above that law. What superintendence could be 
more providential than that over Joseph in the court of 
Pharaoh, and Esther in the court of Ahasuerus, or that 
over Philip when he met and preached to the African 
Jewish proselyte, and Paul in his missionary tours 
among the Gentiles? 

And the providence of the past is the providence of 
the present — the same agent, the same methods, (except 
perhaps the miraculous), the same end. Nor does it 
relate to merely the great events of history. He who 
numbers the hairs of the head, who notes the sparrow's 
fall, who feeds the bird of the air without barn, clothes 
the flower of the field without its spinning or weaving, 
is not unmindful of the humblest of the children of 
men, into whose hands and brains he puts the means 



IN PROVIDENCE AND HISTORY. 53 

of support and of progress and of prosperity. He that 
drove the plane and plied the hammer on the carpenter's 
bench of Nazareth/ stands now by the artisan and 
mechanic and manufacturer and every workman of every 
sort and grade of our own day. He is the workman's 
best friend, best counsellor, best support. But, unlike 
the bird of the air, the beast of the field, the workman 
is free, which makes him a man ; and this freedom of 
will determines whether the friendship and counsel and 
support of the Master Builder shall be received. Wise 
would it be for Knights of Labor, and laborers not 
Knights, to recognize and act upon this vital element in 
the history of human crafts. But, whether this Master 
Builder is recognized or not, he does not permit the will or 
the wilfulness of man to interfere with the great purposes 
for which he controls the history of the world. And 
is not this general principle of divine providence appli- 
cable to all of the affairs of men ? He who when on 
earth had his eye on the shepherd with his flock, the vine- 
dresser with his vines, and the tiller of the soil sowing 
his seed and reaping his harvest, and the merchantman 
with his varied commodities, from each of whom he de- 
rived striking illustrations for the elucidation of his 
doctrines ; he who had to do with the government of- 
ficer at the receipt of custom, and had debates with 
lawyers and philosophers and religionists of every sort, 
and who was not indifferent with regard to the rule of the 
rulers of Palestine and the king at Rome; this one who 
noticed the children piping and dancing in the streets, 
and enjoyed the hospitalities of Cana and Bethany, 



54 the carpenter's son. 

surely he is not neglectful of any human interests, 
material, professional, religious, social or governmental. 
And has this not been so from the beginning? Was he 
not with the first shepherd who brought to the altar a 
more acceptable offering than his brother, and with the 
first tiller of the soil, to whom he said, "If thou doest 
not well sin lieth at thy door " ? And who was the 
instructor of Jubal, " the father of all that handle the 
harp and the organ ;" and of Tubal Cain, who was the 
" instructor of every artificer in iron and brass " ? Did 
he not lay the foundations of all government in the 
family institution ; and has he not supervised to check 
or to stimulate all the governments of men, whether 
patriarchal, monarchical, despotic or democratic, as he 
has been interested in all the great systems of philosophy 
or religion, all of which either represent some truth of 
nature or celebrate some attribute of the apiixUruv him- 
self? In his day, I may add, he had to do also with 
the man of blood, the Roman soldier, and recently 
there has issued from the press an admirable work, 
illustrative of his presence now in the scenes of war, 
named " Christ in the Camp." In fact, the trades, and 
vocations, and professions, and customs, and societies, and 
governments, and wars even of men, are the methods, 
with or without human acquiescence to his will, by 
which the great builder of human history carries on the 
progress of the world. Man, with all his faculties, and 
susceptibilities and volition, is just as much the instrument 
of the apxtrixTtov of the universe as the laws of gravita- 
tion and cohesion, or the laws of the earth's revolution 



IN PKGVIDENCE AND HISTOKY. 55 

and fructifying power. God is omnipotent. This is 
hard to realize. But it is true. And with omnipotence 
it is as easy to rule the free agency of man and of devils 
as it is to rule the brute matter of the earth. And part 
of the divine providential government is to accomplish 
its sovereign purpose by letting men and devils do their 
own will. The grandest accomplishments of Jehovah 
were wrought out by man's first defiance of the divme 
will and the diabolical execution of his Son on the cross 
of Calvary. The sovereign rixrwv does not propose 
to feed any creatures of his hand with the breath of life 
or clothe them with the garbs of flesh or of spirit with- 
out using them for the achievement of his own supreme 
glory. If the Divine Maker ever annihilates a creature 
it will be when he cannot control him for the accom- 
plishment of his eternal purposes. That will not be 
world without end ! 

But we must not forget his own personal labors of 
mind and of spirit, which bring him in sympathy 
with all the toils and struggles of human intellects and 
souls, over which he has also a minute superintendence. 
Socrates said he was constantly followed by a good 
demon giving him counsel, and the same might have 
said Plato, and Aristotle, and Bacon, and Locke, and 
Newton ; and thus might say to-day every child of 
mental toil and agony. Matthew says angels came and 
ministered unto the Carpenter's Son in his conflicts and 
passion. But more than an angel, the Carpenter's Son 
himself, made perfect by his own suffering, ministers to 
every earnest child of heart-labor and head-toil. Thus 



56 the carpenter's son. 

he supervises and superintends by his providence not 
only the material and circumstantial, but the intellectual 
and moral interests of the world, fitting or over-ruling 
all for the construction of his great and universal struc- 
ture of praise and glory. 

If it be said that this divine guidance does not appear 
commonly in the historic records of human events, I 
ask, What is the essential difference between the records 
of history sacred and profane? The answer may be 
given in the statement of a case. Suppose a merely 
human historian had given the account of Moses con- 
ducting the Hebrews through the wilderness, would 
there have been seen anything of the divine hand? 
Has not the greatest of Roman historians done this, and 
does he not attribute to wild asses what Moses attributes 
to the providence of God ? And suppose the rise and 
fall of the Assyrian and Egyptian powers, or the 
powers of Greece and Rome, had been written by the 
pens of Moses or of John, would not the hand of God 
have been as apparent as in the history of ancient 
Israel, or of the early church? The essential difference 
between these two classes of history is that sacred 
history records from the standpoint of the great first 
cause, while profane history records from the stand- 
point of second causes. Were the history of America 
written by the pen of Luke its discovery by Columbus, 
the struggles of the colonies, the Constitution of the 
United States, the conflict between the States, the de- 
velopment of boundless resources, the progress of the 
truth, as well as the earthquake, the tempests and 



IN PROVIDENCE AND HISTORY. 57 

floods, and the wide-spread evils of the land, would be 
seen connected with the divine rule, just as much as in 
the history of the discovery, the settlement, the tribe- 
troubles, the blessings and the cursings of the land of 
Canaan, given according to promise to the children of 
Abraham. Was not Jehovah as much the God of 
Moab as of Judah ? Is he not as much the God of the 
Caucasian race, or of the Asiatic, or African race, as of 
the race of Abram ? Are not the nations of the earth 
the children of Adam, the son of God? And does not 
" the only begotten Son " of the Father of all, whose 
mediation and sacrifice is the providential reason for the 
preservation of any of the children of men, superintend 
these nations of the earth as certainly as he did the 
tribes of Israel ? Jehovah is a broad God— he is the 
God universal, not merely the God of the Jew or of the 
Christian. The difference in his dealing with the races 
and nations of men, as respects his connection with 
their history, is merely seeming; it is merely in the 
fact that he writes the history of some peoples and 
man w r rites the history of others. But does he not 
write some history — the history in the Scriptures — to 
teach us the laws by which all history should be written 
or interpreted ? Take the histories of Herodotus, Livy, 
Xenophon, Gibbon, Macaulay, Bancroft, and apply to 
them the law of interpretation derived from the history 
of Israel and of the early Christians, and so far as the 
statements of these histories are true, they would read 
just as sacred history reads, and many of the events 
would appear just as wonderful as the most marvellous 
events of inspired history. 



58 the carpenter's son. 

But what is history ? Some one says, " Philosophy 
teaching by example." Is it not even in its narrowest 
sense more than this? Is it not the record of God's 
dealing with his creatures, whether the record recognizes 
the hand of God or not? But this definition relates 
merely to the record of the world's events. May not 
history be taken in the broad sense of the consecution of 
these events, whether they be recorded or not? How 
little of the events of the universe is recorded. Even 
on earth, what is recorded of the changes, the growth 
the progress, the experience, the acts of things and per- 
sons, is as nothing in comparison with the endless 
unwritten volumes on hidden pages, locked up in the 
arcana of physical and animal nature and in the bosom 
of mysterious and self-ignorant mankind. And elevat- 
ing and widening the range of vision, taking in the 
circuit of creation, with its countless worlds and its 
endless grades of intelligence and morals, and the 
unnumbered cycles of the existence of many ; when we 
look thus and ask the question, How much history is 
there ? we see that history is something more than the 
sparse and partial records of the human historian. The 
records of all these worlds' experience and acts and pos- 
sessions may be made on the minds and memories of 
recording angels. We know not. But we know that 
there is a record of every atom, and relation, and change, 
and event, and experience, and thought, and sensation, 
and purpose, and hope, and possibility, that has ever 
existed in heaven, in earth, in hell, in any and in every 
part of the universe, and that is in the mind and heart 



IN PROVIDENCE AND HISTORY. 59 

of the d.pxirixrwv of all. This record is clear and vast 
and capable of review. It is the photograph of history 
universal. To human mind, and perhaps angelic, this 
boundless history might seem as little more than chaos 
itself, which might be best represented by a huge blot 
upon the memory that contains it. But the picture of 
no tree, nor beautiful scene, is more distinctly depicted on 
the retina of the human eye, the recollection of no happy 
event of yesterday in personal history, is clearer to the 
memory that cherishes and reviews it hourly, than is the 
whole history, in every minutiae and detail from the be- 
ginning until now, depicted on the mind of the omniscient 
and unfailing rixTwv. Nor is this panoramic. The re- 
view requires not a second's time. It is all present in 
one unbroken view in his eternal now. It is a photo- 
graph as the photograph of some picture gallery in the 
palace of a great king. 

But how can there be a photograph of the united 
events and experiences of the universe as a picture 
gallery, or a palace of many departments, unless those 
events and experiences are united, and form in fact a 
great whole, as the gallery or the palace ? Here is sug- 
gested again the constructiveness of the great rixrwu 
which is universal and everlasting. The relations and 
ideas, and events and experiences of creation are reali- 
ties as much as the material of the earth or the sun. 
They are as capable of unification and of construction 
as are the parts of a throne, a palace, a temple. And 
thus is all history upbuilt before the mind and by the 
hand of the universal apxtrixTcov. There may be dis- 



60 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

covered reason for this. This history is the fruitage of 
the essences of creation. These are the works by which 
all may be tested. The unified and constructed whole 
may be needful for the divine vindication in the courts 
of eternity, in the presence of the assembled intelli- 
gence and spirits of the universe. It may be needful 
to give a vision of the whole to human or angelic gaze, 
as the glory of the whole world was needlessly exhibited 
to the Carpenter's Son. It may be that this constructed 
history is as needful, for reasons unknown, as the con- 
struction of man, of the Bible, the earth, the universe. 
The Tixrwv implies construction, as the essence of his 
powers, and the circumstantial and invisible things 
of the universe fall under that power as all things 
visible. And this history, universal and constructed, 
involves the immediate presence and superintendence of 
the great constructor, the Carpenter's Son. And let it 
be said that this great structure of universal history 
is only another department of that universal Temple 
toward the completion of which all things tend, which 
reminds us of the words of the Carpenter's Son, " In 
my Father's house are many mansions." 

But there is a view of this subject without which 
this consideration of it would be fatally defective. The 
divine rhrwv is building up his universal Temple for 
the eternal praise of his name, by the preservation and 
progress of the worlds, through material and imma- 
terial works, and powers, and governments, and events 
and histories over which he exercises a providential 
care, without which no reign of law could prevent for 



IN PROVIDENCE AND HISTORY. 61 

one second a reign of universal chaos. But while he 
superintends all for this vast ultimate purpose, he super- 
intends it, as he himself declares, for the benefit of the 
heirs of eternal glory, to whose history he must and 
does give a special and effectual supervision and super- 
intendence. The specialness of it is because of its 
effectiveness. The ways of these heirs are wisdom's 
ways, and lead inevitably to their predestined glory. 
Hence, the superintendence of all else has reference in 
part to their universal aiding to the accomplishment of 
the destiny of the children of light. Do not the devils 
even promote their glory ? We know that the angels 
of glory do, for thus is it written. And is it not further 
written that all things work together for the good of 
those predestined to conformity to the image of the Son 
of God? And the consummation of this great end of 
divine providence will be one of the grand pillars 
in the universal and eternal Temple erecting by the 
Carpenter's Son. 



CHAPTER IX. 

IN THE PURPOSES OF GKACE. 

He hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world. — Eph. i. 4. 

THE foregoing, with regard to the Carpenter's Son, 
have been glimpses of him from the several stand- 
points which the treatment of the subject required to 
be taken. But now a more connected view will be 
given, comprehending many of these partial views, but 
more comprehensive than any of them. I propose to 
sketch him briefly from his seat in the Eternal Council 
of grace to the execution of the redemptive purpose of 
this Council in his state of resumed glory. 

PEELIMINAEY QUESTIONS. 

It has been said that all things were made for the 
glory of God, and all things were permitted or ordered 
to be done for the same end. In the Revelation of 
Divine Truth we have a glimpse of the universe before 
the introduction of moral evil. This glimpse is given 
in the statement of the occasion of its introduction in 
the undue self-elevation of a lofty spirit near the throne 
of God. Before that self-elevation this spirit was lofty 
in his greatness and goodness, and so were kindred 
spirits, and the universe was full of the good and the 
blessed and the glorious only. The earth, before the 
fall of man, of which we have a picture, may be fairly 
62 



IN THE PURPOSES OF GRACE. 63 

regarded a miniature of the beauty and the blessedness 
of that broader state which characterized the creatures 
and creation of the Great Maker and Architect of all. 
And suppose the mind capable of taking in this wide- 
spread universe as originally made before the introduc- 
tion of evil. What a stupendous and magnificent and 
palatial Temple surrounding the throne of the Most 
High! Could not the universe remain so forever? 
Would not the glory and the blessedness of the Maker 
and Architect be complete and perpetual? But we 
must not forget our postulate that all existence, outside 
of the Divine Being, took its rise in the eternal purpose 
to reveal God to the eyes of intelligent creatures. And 
who shall say that the whole of the knowable being of 
God can be compassed in the knowledge and experience 
of what is good and great? Are there not unfathomable 
depths in his being of infinite holiness, and justice and 
wrath, that no exhibition of good and greatness and 
blessedness can disclose? And his eternal sovereignty, 
not to be questioned as the price of the continuance of 
the glory of creation and of the divine throne ! Shall 
not that be revealed for the essential benefit of the uni- 
verse, and how shall the revelation be made ? God is 
not the author of moral evil. But does not the entrance 
of it in the form of rebellion, and the punishment of it 
in " everlasting chains under darkness," give the best 
conceivable exhibition of the infinite and ineffable 
sacredness of the absolute sovereignty of the Most 
High ? We may deplore, and do deplore, as doubtless 
do the holy ones of the spirit- world who keep their first 



64 the carpenter's son. 

estate. But the permission of evil was wise though 
utterly mysterious and incomprehensible, and may it 
not have been the origin of the greatest of all revela- 
tions of the Eternal Maker — the revelation of the 
infinite grace of his being? In passing, it may be 
asked whether the ancient and philosophic notion of 
light springing out of darkness, of good coming out of 
evil, had its origin in some surmise or glimpse of this 
mystic eternal truths of the exhibition of the mercy and 
grace of God, arising from the exhibition of his eternal 
wrath ? 

And another question of the dark and mysterious 
things of the world. Did the death which is said to have 
reigned on our planet before the creation of man have 
connection with the original introduction and penalty 
of moral evil? One of three things seems to be true. 
Either the fall of man had an anticipatory effect in the 
ruin of creatures before his creation, or the reign of 
death which pervaded the pre-Adarnic world was a 
fell consequence of the fall of the angelic race of trans- 
gressors, who must have had some connection with our 
world, or there may be suffering and death where there 
is no transgression. The first view has some analogy 
in the fact that the effects of redemption extend beyond 
the race of man in another sphere, for if redemption 
may go beyond the race redeemed in the future, may 
not the fall have gone before the sinner in the past? 
The second view receives some likelihood from the fact, 
already mentioned, of the intense interest that the angelic 
race has shown in our world, — though not manifested, 



IN THE PURPOSES OF GRACE. 65 

as some hold, in " the sons of God " even visiting it and 
becoming allied, in the early ages, with "the daughters 
of men." With regard to the last view there seems to 
be some support in the experience of man, and of the 
Carpenter's Son himself, both of whom have endured 
extreme sorrow in the exercise of the holiest affection 
of their being. But an answer to this question is not 
needful for our present purpose, so we leave it among 
the unsolved, and perhaps unsolvable problems of this 
world of mysteries. The simple Bible reader without 
the influence of science, I should add, may deny the 
premise that death did reign before the fall of man, and 
that settles the question conclusively to his mind. This 
denial makes our world originally made for man and 
its whole destiny, for weal or woe, to depend alone upon 
his fate by the fall or by the scheme for his personal 
redemption. 

Here arises the question as to the Council of the 
Godhead with regard to the redemptive scheme for man. 
Did this Council succeed or antedate the introduction of 
moral evil? This is not a vain inquiry; our fuller 
compass of that scheme may depend upon the right 
answer to it. The intimations of revelation are that 
moral evil came first. That moral evil gave at once 
the occasion for one great revelation of the divine 
nature. But that revelation having been made, the 
redemptive scheme for another race, planned in the 
Council of the Trinity, gives another and greater reve- 
lation of the Almighty — the glory of which revelation 
has an important, if not essential, back-ground in the 
5 



66 the cabpentek's son. 

previous exhibition of the eternal wrath that followed 
the violation of the divine will and rebellion against 
the supreme government of God. Hence, perhaps, the 
keen interest which the sons of God took in the creation 
of our physical world— the theatre of this exhibition of 
the divine grace ; hence, perhaps their seeking, as we 
are told, to unravel the sacred and eternal mystery. 
And are we not distinctly informed that this scheme is 
for the instruction of " the principalities and powers in 
heavenly places," who had only known of wrath in 
connection with violated law? Thus this scheme of 
grace has a bearing far beyond the race and destiny of 
man, and is perhaps the grandest and completest revela- 
tion of Deity that ever has or ever will be made. This 
may be, and probably is, the ultimate revelation of God 
for which all creation was brought into being. 

And here enters another question of eternal chronology 
— if the terms are not contradictory — whether the pur- 
pose to create the physical world succeeded or antedated 
the purposes of grace? If this purpose of creation suc- 
ceeded the Counsels of Grace, as reason would seem 
to suggest, and as revelation seems to teach, by the 
creation of our earth and its surroundings actually 
following the purpose of redemption, the one being 
in time and the other in eternity, then have we the 
well-founded hypothesis that this whole material uni- 
verse is a surrounding of the Cross of Christ which is 
to shed upon it its greatest and most enduring lustre. 
Many are the divine attributes reflected in the material 
world which declare so plainly the glory for which it 



IN THE PURPOSES OF GRACE. 67 

was made, but the light of divine grace shed upon these 
reflections, gives them an additional significance which 
is their perfecting excellence. Not only do they exhibit 
divine omnipotence and omniscience and wisdom, but 
they exhibit these as the handmaids of divine love and 
mercy. Hence the universal Temple of creation is 
represented as resounding with acclaims not only of the 
redeemed but of the angelic hosts saying, " Blessing and 
glory, and power and dominion be unto him that sitteth 
upon the throne, and the Lamb forever and ever!" 
And here we see a confirmation of the view that the 
original conception of creation, in the Divine mind, was 
that of an infinite and eternal Temple to his praise, 
which is an outward exhibition of the inner and eternal 
verity of his own infinite and everlasting Temple-like 
being. 

ETERNAL COUNCIL OF GRACE. 

Angels had fallen and were lost forever, and thus 
the wrath of God would be eternally exhibited. Man 
shall be made in the image of God, and he shall fall 
by the machinations of the lost world, but shall he 
perish with the Devil ? This fall may be the occasion, 
as has been said, of the profoundest revelation of the 
triune God ; and hence the gracious purpose of the per- 
sons of the sacred Trinity who respectively and unitedly 
are to execute the plan. And in the very inception of the 
plan there is the revelation of the Trinity itself — three 
distinct persons in one eternal God. Had this revela- 
tion been made to the other intelligences? Was there 
need of the revelation either to the holy or the fallen 



68 the carpenter's son. 

race? Thus begins the grand purpose and plan of 
grace. But with the next step — the essence of the 
scheme — the atoning sacrifice of the Son, for the satis- 
faction of the divine government, comes the most 
unfathomable of mysteries. How shall God be vitally 
connected with man in a consciously personal being? 
How can the Divine mind suffer such personal associa- 
tion with sin which it has eternally punished in the 
angelic race ? How could the human element of this 
being suffer and die, and the divine remain utterly unaf- 
fected? How could even the infinitude of divine 
grace submit to such a humiliation to save the guilty 
sinner, man ? But the purpose that man as a race shall 
not die is formed ; the plan for the salvation of the elect 
is complete. The Father fathers the scheme, the Spirit 
engages his efficient powers for its execution, the Son is 
the ready victim of the holy enterprise, for which media- 
torial devotion he is to be crowned with mediatorial 
glories, world without end. But not only the victim is 
he to be. As the original agent of universal creation 
he is to be the Builder and Architect of the all-compre- 
hending edifice of grace and glory, and hence he is to 
appear in the fulness of time as the Carpenter's Son. 

But man is to be free. Suppose he refuse, after his 
voluntary fall, life eternal, as perhaps the devil did, is 
there no possibility of the failure of the scheme ? God 
forbid ! And forbidden was it in the eternal Council of 
Grace, "For whom he did foreknow he also did predesti- 
nate to be conformed to the image of his Son, . . . 
according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in 
Christ Jesus our Lord." 






CHAPTER X. 

IN MAN'S CKEATION AND FALL. 

CREATION. 

Let us make man in our image, — Gen. i. 26. 

THE abode in which he was settled, so beautiful, 
so varied, so vast, and fitted up with appliances 
so convenient, so magnificent, yea, so sublime, gave inti- 
mation of how excellent a being Adam was. And 
viewed in himself, so fair in person, so powerful in 
position, being duplex in nature and having constant 
communion with God, he stood among the grandest and 
most blessed of divine creations, and gave promise of 
being the head of a grand race worthy of "the image 
of God." Nor are we in this later dispensation left 
without exact representation of this good and great 
being. There is given us no personal image of the first 
man, but there is given the person whose image man 
originally was. He who appeared as the Carpenter's Son 
was the being who said, " Let us make man in our . 
image," and who walked and talked with him in Eden. 
To know the first Adam in his excellence we have but 
to note the Second Adam in the mental, moral and 
spiritual attributes which he exhibited as he moved 
among the children of men, as " the brightness of the 
Father's glory and the express image of his person." 

69 



70 THE carpenter's SON. 

Iii several respects the first Adam excelled the second. 
He was made at once into the perfect image of the Son 
of God without passing through the formative period of 
infancy and childhood ; he was not a burden-bearer, and 
stood erect in the strength of his untaxed and perfectly 
developed manhood; all his surroundings filled him 
with only profounder gladness of spirit and broader 
hope of life ; and his meat and drink was to do the will, 
to receive the blessing and to imbibe the knowledge and 
wisdom and greatness of an unoffended God. Each 
day's creation added grandeur to the preceding glory of 
creation ; but on the sixth day the wonderful series of 
created wonders culminated in the creation of man, the 
lord of all he was surrounded by, and of whose creation 
we have this record : " In the day that God created man, 
in the likeness of God created he him ; male and female 
created he them, and blessed them and called their 
name Adam in the day when they were created. 5 ' In 
order to represent perfectly the divine being as appeared 
in the Carpenter's Son, who embodied in himself all the 
attributes of humanity, the first Adam was made male 
and female. The two were one. "God called their 
name Adam." And as the federal head and representa- 
tive of a great race to come, he was by way of eminence 

6 rixrojv yivoog. 

As an imperishable monument of creation a fixed 
period of time was set apart to celebrate the glory 
thereof; and that man, the centre of creation, was the 
chief glory of the works whose perpetual commemora- 
tion is secured by the revolving globe itself, have we 



in man's creation and fall. 71 

not a suggestion in the holy seventh day being now 
divinely appointed as the memorial of the model of the 
first man, even the arisen Second Adam — a memorial 
to be sacredly recognized and honored as the price of 
prosperity personal and national? 

And the glory of the two Adams is so interwoven 
that it is celebrated in a single song and exposition of 
inspiration, " What is man that thou art mindful of 
him ? or the son of man that thou visitest him ? Thou 
madest him a little lower than the angels; thou crownedst 
him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the 
works of thy hands. . . . But now we see not yet 
all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was 
made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of 
death, crowned with glory and honor." 

THE FALL. 

In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shall surely die. — Gen. ii. 1-17. 

The fall of Adam is not invested with the difficulty 
that surrounds the fall of Satan. How a holy being, 
with his nature poised on the principle of supreme love 
to a sovereign God, can lose that poise by any move- 
ment of his own is hard to comprehend. Perhaps the 
jar was given to the holy angel from some power without, 
which had fallen before. But how did that power fall? 
This drives us quickly and inevitably into the ancient 
Persian idea of the co-eternity of the principles of good 
and evil. That solves the problem by overthrowing our 
own most radical conception of God as infinitely and 
eternally supreme. But no such insolvable difficulty 



72 the carpenter's son. 

enters into Adam's lapse and ruin. I hold in my hand 
a Copenhagen chronometer of the most perfect construc- 
tion, and I drop into its delicate and complicated works 
a grain of sand. The whole mechanism is at once 
thrown into disorder, and the time-keeper becomes 
utterly unreliable as a keeper of time. Thus was it 
with the perfectly true and holy man and woman in the 
image of God. A disorganizing idea was dropped into 
their mental and moral structure by a power extraneous 
to itself. That fallen spirit who subtly approached 
the Carpenter's Son w r hen on earth, approached the first 
Adam with exactly the same profoundly malicious and 
ingenious suggestion that he should be independent of 
the sovereign will of Jehovah. This had been his own 
fatally successful temptation, for it is written that 
through " pride'' the Devil fell into condemnation. 
The Second Adam resisted the temptation by the word 
of God ; but the profundity of the temptation to which 
Adam yielded was that the divine truth was questioned 
and denied and subverted in advance, and thus the pro- 
tection of the divine word was laid aside by the tempta- 
tion itself. There was wonderful wisdom in this, which 
the first Adam did not see as did the second. Hence, 
sin is described by the Carpenter's Son as the disbelief 
of him. The promised Spirit was to reprove the world 
"of sin because it hath not believed in me." The 
distrust of the Creator made a breach in the whole 
spiritual mechanism of the man, so that a flood-gate 
was open for every possible evil, and his ruin was so 
complete that it might be said of him as the Carpenter's 



in man's creation and fall. 73 

Son said of Satan, " I saw him fall from heaven like 
Lucifer ! " If it be asked why Satan sought thus to 
ruin the first Adam, who was made lord of the lower 
creation, and the Second Adam, who was to recover the 
fallen position of the first, promising the one to make 
him like the gods and the other to give him the nations 
of the world without his contention for them, it may- 
be asked in return, Was it because they were to hold 
the empire from which he had been dethroned, or was it 
merely because he is the Devil ? 

This virus of disbelief of God shot through the 
Adamic being, vitiating the whole of it, and cut him off 
from the controlling influence and power of the divine 
presence. He is left to himself. More than that, a 
flaming sword obstructs his way to the tree of life, 
which is a figure of the life-giving I Am, the full 
restoration to vital association with whom is described 
in the second Eden also as the tree of life, and the 
virtual restoration to which is described on earth in 
such gospel language as this, "For to me to live is 
Christ : Christ is formed within us the hope of glory." 
Thus was the sentence of death fully executed. No 
death could be more complete. The mere suspension of 
animation and being put into the grave would be no 
death to this death, living and perpetuated before the 
eyes of the universe. God's word was doubted ; but 
the word of God was realized : " In the day that thou 
eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." 

But the fall of man was not merely individual. Adam 
was the representative of a race on trial in its illustrious 



74 the carpenter's son. 

and God-like head. It was this relation, involving such 
momentous consequences, that made his creation the 
most elevated and the best protected from danger con- 
sistent with his necessary power of volition, and which 
made the test of loyalty the very simplest that could be 
given. But failing to abstain from the fruit of a single 
tree forbidden, while in possession of all the trees of 
Eden, and he and his race in him subsequently endors- 
ing his disobedience as voluntary sin, he justly fell. The 
very earth itself fell, bringing forth thorns and briars 
instead of fruit and flowers. And how fearful the fall 
not only to his now self-conscious, guilty and God-fearing 
self, but to his posterity ! His son was a fatricidal mur- 
derer, and a fugitive and vagabond on the face of the 
earth. And so corrupt became the family of man that 
" it repented God " that he had made him, and he 
washed the whole race, electing only eight souls, from 
the face of the earth. How fearful the picture of sin, 
the first race of transgressors in the waters of the 
deluge, the second in the fire of hell ! 

But why the election of eight souls ? According to 
the eternal council, the human race — the image of God 
— is not to be destroyed. The living surety and future 
representative is already at hand on the outside of Eden. 
He avows man's final supremacy over the fell spirit that 
ruined him, in the unmistakable words, " The seed of 
the woman " — even himself — " shall bruise the head of 
the serpent." This must be through a conflict of blood; 
but it shall be. Yes, of blood ! The blood is life, and 
life shall be given for life ; but man, in his second rep- 



in man's creation and fall. 75 

resentative, shall prevail and be restored. That is to 
be henceforth the grand programme of the whole 
world's history ; for, for that was not the world made ? 
Why then surprise at the universal flow of typical 
blood — blood for blood, blood for revenge, blood for the 
altar, blood staining and spreading over the whole 
world ! This was the comfort and hope and virtual 
restoration in Adam's day, his son offering the lamb 
acceptable to God ; and what but the same in our day ? 
Since the self-offering of the Lamb of God, by the 
priestly hand of the Second Adam himself, where sin 
abounds grace much more abounds. So superabundant 
is divine grace that the cheering language with regard 
to the resurrection of the dead is, that, "As in Adam all 
die, so in Christ shall all be made alive.'* And more 
definite and circumstantial is the statement, u Wherefore 
as by one man sin entered into the world and death by 
sin, and so death passed upon all men, for that all have 
sinned ; . . . therefore, as by the offence of one judg- 
ment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by 
the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men 
unto justification of life." 



CHAPTER XL 

IN PROGRESS OF EEDEMPTIVE CONSTRUCTION. 
ANTEDILUVIAN PERIOD. 

Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord. — Gen. iv. 26. 

THE start of this divine construction was fairly made 
in this period. Paul says that the church is built 
upon "the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus 
Christ himself being the chief corner-stone." This 
corner-stone was virtually laid when the Lamb was 
slain from the foundation of the world ; and there were 
many prophets and the greatest of apostles in this ante- 
diluvian period. This apostle was called sneeringly, in 
the gospel period, the Carpenter's Son ; he was known, 
in the antediluvian period, under the name of Jehovah, 
which is rendered in our version of the Old Testament, 
The Lord. Peter declares that this apostle, sent from 
heaven, preached before the flood. What did he preach? 
The great subject of his preaching might be inferred 
from the instruction given to the shepherd-son of the 
first man, with regard to the offering of the typical 
lamb. It may be more clearly discovered from the 
preaching of Noah, who is declared not only a just 
man and perfect in his generations, but a preacher of 
righteousness — of righteousness, not of the law which 
had been so fatally broken by Adam, and was so con- 
76 



IN PROGRESS OF REDEMPTIVE CONSTRUCTION. 77 

demnatory and destructive in its effects; but the 
"righteousness which is by faith." What was the 
faith of that period ? The faith of Abel and of Noah 
is put in the same category with the faith of Abraham 
and David, and theirs was the same faith as Peter's 
and John's, which "is the substance of things hoped for, 
the evidence of things not seen." In the antediluvian 
period, this faith may have looked back to the eternally 
slain lamb, which the first great apostle must have 
preached and expounded ; and laying hold of his right- 
eousness, to be afterwards mediatorially wrought out, had 
that righteousness imputed to the believer for his justifica- 
tion. The foundations of the redemptive construction 
were thus begun by the divine exposition and promulga- 
tion of this essential doctrine ; and no little material for 
the Lord's house was gathered in that period. Glimpses 
are given of the kind of material collected. Abel was 
a goodly specimen, not because he was a martyr to the 
truth ; for it is distinctly written that the blood of the 
lamb, symbolized by his offering, "speaketh better 
things than the blood of Abel." It was his righteous- 
ness by faith which wrought him into the holy fabric 
and made him a preacher of righteousness, not merely 
in his day and generation, but to the end of time. This 
is his epitaph, "By faith Abel offered unto God a more 
excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained 
witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his 
gifts : and by it he being dead, yet speaketh." So noted 
was the progress of the work in the days of Enos that 
it is recorded, "Then began men to call upon the name 



78 the cakpenter's son. 

of the Lord." In another generation we find a man of 
the highest type of godly character, of whom it is 
written, "And Enoch walked with God three hundred 
years; and he was not, for God took him." The .gospel 
of this period, like that subsequently preached by the 
Carpenter's Son, who did not hesitate to say to the 
gainsaying, " Behold, your house is left unto you deso- 
late," was not only the accents of tender compassion. 
The divine apostle said to the incorrigible, "My spirit 
shall not always strive with man." A specimen of 
Enoch's preaching against the abominably wicked is pre- 
served, "And Enoch also, the seventh from Adam, 
prophesied of these saying, Behold the Lord cometh" — 
the Lord Jesus — "with ten thousands of his saints to 
execute judgment upon all, and to convince all that are 
ungodly among them of all their ungodly deeds, which 
they have ungodly committed, and of all their hard 
speeches which ungodly sinners have spoken against 
him," — the Lord Jesus. To this passage the preserver 
of it adds an exhortation to the saints to keep them- 
selves in the love of God, "building up yourselves on 
your most holy faith, and looking for the mercy of our 
Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." In those days 
a broad line of demarcation was drawn between "the 
sons of men" and the "sons of God." Some that were 
called by the latter name lapsed; and their brethren 
might have said then as it is said now: "They went out 
from us because they were not of us." And but for the 
elective line that ran down from Adam to Noah through 
Seth (who was given in the place of the murdered Abel), 



IN PROGRESS OF REDEMPTIVE CONSTRUCTION. 79 

as it ran, through Shem, from Noah to Abraham, how 
could any have been saved? And what shall be said 
of Noah, the preacher of righteousness, elected from all 
the myriads of the human family to preserve the seed 
of man and beast and bird and creeping things from 
the universal pouring of Divine wrath upon the lamb- 
despising and Lord-rejecting children of men? God 
had seen that the wickedness of man was great in the 
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of 
his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord 
said, "I will destroy man whom I have created from the 
face of the earth ; both man and beast, and the creeping 
things and the fowls of the air ; for it repenteth me that 
I have made them." "But Noah" (of whom his father, 
when naming him, said, "This same shall comfort us 
concerning our work and toil of our hands, because of 
the ground which the Lord hath cursed "), "found grace 
in the eyes of the Lord." Noah found grace : he was 
saved, as Paul was, by grace through faith and that not 
of himself — it was the gift of God. Of the rest of the 
world it was written by the Lord, " And behold I, even 
I do bring a flood of waters upon the earth, to destroy 
all flesh wherein is the breath of life from under 
heaven; and everything that is in the earth shall die. 
But with thee," said he to Noah, "will I establish my 
Covenant." What Covenant was this? Not the Cove- 
nant with Adam; for that was a Covenant of works, 
which demanded fidelity equally on the side of each 
party. But, the Covenant which the Lord calls "my 
Covenant " is the one made in eternity between the per- 



80 THE CARPENTERS SON. 

sons of the godhead, and to which Paul refers when, in 
contrasting it with a legal Covenant, he says, " But, God 
is one" — the sole dependence of the Covenant of grace. 
Fearful were the abominations of these times : " The 
earth was corrupt before God and the earth was filled 
with violence. And God looked upon the earth, and 
behold, it was corrupt ; and all flesh had corrupted his 
way upon the earth." But, was there no mercy in him 
who was slain as the Lamb of God, to take away the sin 
of the world ? Abounding was his grace, but sin super- 
abounded. In no period of the redemptive construction 
was there more extreme exhibition of grace than was 
made in those days, according to the words of the Apostle 
Peter: "For Christ also hath suffered for sins, the just 
for the unjust, that he might bring us unto God, being 
put to death in the flesh, but quickened by the spirit ; 
by which also he went and preached unto the spirits in 
prison, which sometime were disobedient, when once the 
long suffering of God waited in the days of Noah, while 
the ark was a preparing, wherein few, that is eight souls 
were saved by water." This was the limit of even infi- 
nite grace ; and the line was passed when his spirit could 
no longer " strive with men," as it was in later days 
when it was awfully decreed : " Ephraim is joined to his 
idols, let him alone." Man was only allowed to do his 
own will and have his own way. What can he charge 
against God ? But, the decrees of eternal election must 
be fulfilled, and Noah is commanded to build an ark for 
saving of his house ; which ark, not less perfect in its 
construction than the Tabernacle or the Temple, was a 



IN PROGRESS OF REDEMPTIVE CONSTRUCTION. 81 

fit symbol of the House of God constructing by grace, 
through the ages, for the salvation of the family of the 
Most High. Peter had an eye to this symbolism when 
he, referring to the Ark, says, " Wherein few, that is 
eight souls were saved by water. The like figure where- 
unto even baptism doth also now save us (not the put- 
ting away of the filth of the flesh, but the answer of a 
good conscience toward God), by the resurrection of Je- 
sus Christ : who is gone into heaven ; angels and au- 
thorities and powers being made subject unto him." 

But, the ark was no more designed to symbolize the 
salvation of the believing children of God than the 
flood was designed to symbolize the destruction of the 
disobedient and disbelieving children of man. The one 
was a type of the work of the grace of God; the other, 
of the work of. the wrath of the Lamb. The wrath that 
destroyed the world once by water will destroy it again 
by fire; and the avenging angel is in both cases the 
despised evangel. There is no wrath like " the wrath of 
the Lamb." The great curse came, and no living thing 
remained on the earth. a And Noah alone remained 
alive and they that were with him in the ark." 

It is worthy of note that while the Lord commanded 
that only two of all other animals should be saved, he 
ordered that seven of all " clean " animals should be 
taken into the ark. Thus was great prominence given 
to the sacrificial idea, which was the great idea of the 
true religion of those times, as it has been of all times. 
No sooner did Noah come out of the ark than he built 
an altar unto the Lord, and offered upon it of every 
6 



82 the carpenter's son. 

clean beast and bird that had been saved. Thus the 
Lord began the new world by glorifying the great truth 
of Christ, and him crucified. And the Covenant of 
grace was more formally established viith Noah, and 
with all the living creatures about him, over w 7 hich he 
was given control as it was given to Adam, and whose 
fate was to be the fate of their representing Lord. And 
of this Covenant the bow, set in the heavens, was to 
be a memorial forever; and that the Covenant might 
be never forgotten as a Covenant of grace, the same bow 
is seen, in apocalytic vision, to surround the throne of 
him who has on his vesture a name written, "King of 
kings, and Lord of lords," but who might appropriately 
have emblazoned on his diadem : The Carpenter's 
Son. 

Thus in the antediluvian period were* established the 
doctrines of elective grace, salvation by the righteous- 
ness which is by faith in the divine Lamb of God, and 
final destruction by the wrath of the Lamb of all dis- 
believers of his name. The world's greatest sin, in all 
times, is disbelief. Hence, said the Carpenter's Son, the 
Spirit of God shall " reprove the world of sin, because 
they believe not in me." The antediluvian doctrines 
are the essential principles of the redemptive construc- 
tion. And of the two most illustrious examples of the 
two first principles — both men, by nature and in fam- 
ily, sinners — we have these records : " By faith Enoch 
was translated that he should not see death : and was 
not found because God had translated him ; for before 
his translation he had this testimony that he pleased 



IN PROGRESS OF REDEMPTIVE CONSTRUCTION. 83 

God. But, without faith it is impossible to please him ; 
for he that eometh to God must believe that he is, and 
that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him. 
By faith, Noah being warned of God of things not 
seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the 
saving of his house; by the which he condemned the 
world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by 
faith." A further testimony is given of the righteous- 
ness of Noah, which was by faith, when the prophet 
Ezekiel, who was impressing upon his people the cer- 
tainty of the calamities which should come upon the 
land if they should " trespass grievously/' said twice 
in quick succession, " Though these three men, Noah, 
Daniel and Job, were in it, they should deliver but 
their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord 
God." Yes, the testimony is God's himself: " Though 
these three men were in it, as I live saith the Lord 
God, they shall deliver neither sons nor daughters; 
they only shall be delivered, but the land shall be deso- 
late." And once again Jehovah repeats : Though 
Noah were in the land ! Thus it will be, in the end of 
our sinful world, the righteousness and faith of no man 
shall save a single soul — only the righteousness, which 
is by faith, of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

The name of Noah goes down the ages as the builder 
of the first great symbol of the Kingdom of Heaven, 
the ark in which are found these prime elements of the 
House of God: 1. It was of God. 2. It covered the 
elect, though not without righteousness. 3. It was all 
of grace. 4. The provisions were abundant, conspic- 



84 the carpenter's son. 

uous among which were those relating to the atoning 
sacrifice. 5. The salvation was sure and complete. 6. 
All perished who were not in the ark. 7. It was a 
work of faith and obedience. — Heb. xi. 7. 

The Ark of Noah was one of the pivotal points of 
human history, representing the building work, for 
which lived and died the Carpenter's Son. 



CHAPTER XII. 

PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 

ABRAHAM. 

And he believed in the Lord ; and he counted it to him for righteous" 
ness. — Gen. xv. 6. 

THE wrath of God washed away the God-defiant sin- 
ners of earth by the waters of the flood ; but the 
Divine Mercy did not destroy the nature of sin in the elect 
by the salvation of the Ark. Even Noah, the righteous, 
had no sooner landed from the structure symbolic of the 
great salvation by grace, and renewed his solemn Cove- 
nant with the Lord, than he was guilty of gross sin, which 
caused his curse upon his grandson that lasts until this 
day. And so rampant in their pride became the de- 
scendants of the great preacher of righteousness that 
they attempted to defy the divine providence by the 
building of a city, and a tower " whose top may reach 
unto heaven." The striking record is, that the Lord 
came down from heaven to see the city and tower, and 
seeing that the building was not in harmony with his 
redemptive construction, he confounded the builders 
and scattered them over the face of the earth. Yet 
there were some elect among them. The founder of 
the city — Babel — was a mighty hunter " before the 
Lord/' And because he was this, it passed into a pro- 
verb : " Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the 

85 



86 the carpenter's son. 

Lord." Here appeared in post-diluvian man, what had 
appeared in the antediluvian, that the living material 
for the Lord's house must be by the election of grace. 
And thus came prominently in the history of this 
period Abram, of whom the motto of this chapter is 
written. 

In the call and election of Abram by the Carpenter's 
Son, he appeared personally to him. In Haran, where 
he bade Abram u Get thee out of thy country, . 
and I will make of thee a great nation/' the Lord 
spake unto Abram. In the plain of Moreh, where the 
Lord promised : " Unto thy seed will I give this 
land," it is written, u The Lord appeared unto Abram." 
After Abram's interview with Melchizedek and the 
King of Sodom, the record is that " the Lord came 
unto Abram in a vision," promising that " he that shall 
come forth of thine own bowels shall be thine heir." 
But, as the man of God was sitting in his tent door in 
the plains of Mamre, the Carpenter's Son came to him, 
as he appeared to Peter and to John when he called 
them, in the person of a man, whom the Patriarch en- 
tertained with a calf " tender and good" from his flock, 
and with whom he, accompanying him, had a protracted 
interview with regard to the doom of the cities 
of the plain. The narrative of their interview 
concludes : " And the Lord went his way as soon as 
he had left communing with Abraham ; and Abraham 
returned unto his place." Thus we see that the man of 
God knew Jesus ; he had been with him, and talked 
and prayed to him, and knew him in that highest and 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 87 

best sense that all the effectually called and elected know 
him : hence he followed him to a land he knew not of; 
believed him as to things that he could not see nor under- 
stand ; and obeyed him in commands that seemed op- 
posed to nature and to God. This was the faith of the 
Father of the Faithful that was imputed to him for 
righteousness, and is the model of evangelical faith 
given to the ages. 

Abraham was not a perfect man. He dealt harshly 
with Hagar, whose name for Jehovah who came to her 
relief, " Thou God seest me," seems to be a rebuke to 
the patriarch. Deliberately he agreed with Sarah to 
deceive the Pharaoh of Egypt and the Abimelech of 
Gerar, to his own advantage and to their injury. And 
both these heathen kings reproved the man of God. 
But, God did not call him because he was a model man, 
but in order that he might be made a model for sinners 
like himself. Hence, in the midst of his sin with the 
King of Gerar, the Lord commended him — not his sin 
— to Abimelech, saying : " He is a prophet, and he shall 
pray for thee, and thou shalt live." The believing 
world is to follow the Father of the Faithful so far as 
he followed the Carpenter's Son. 

The elements of Abraham's character, generous by 
nature and ennobled by the grace of God, are given 
because he is the chief specimen of the living material 
for the Lord's house presented to all generations by the 
word of God. His faith was great. But it was no 
greater than the promises on which it was founded. 
When he was called to follow the Lord, he was prom- 



88 the carpenter's son* 

ised, " In thee shall all families of the earth be blessed." 
After his generous separation from Lot, the Lord ap- 
peared to him and said, "I will make thy seed as the 
dust of the earth : so that if a man can number the dust 
of the earth, then shall thy seed also be numbered." In 
order to keep before his mind this promise, his name 
was changed, the Lord saying, " Neither shall thy name 
any more be called Abram, but thy name shall be Abra- 
ham; for a father of many nations have I made thee. . . . 
And I will establish my covenant between me and thee 
and thy seed after thee in their generations, for an ever- 
lasting covenant, to be a God unto thee and to thy seed 
after thee." This he believed when he had no legal 
child, and had no prospect of such a child ; and after 
a son and heir was given to him and the Lord com- 
manded him to sacrifice that son — that only son — he 
still believed the promise, because he believed in the 
Covenant-keeping Jehovah. And as a reward to this 
faith and obedience the promise and Covenant of God 
was repeated in a still more emphatic manner, this being 
the record : " And the Angel of the Lord called unto 
Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By 
myself have I sworn, saith the Lord ; for because thou 
hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son — 
thine only son — that in blessing I will bless thee, and in 
multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of 
the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea-shore ; 
and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies ; and 
in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed ; 
because thou hast obeyed my voice." And the faith of 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 89 

the believer to-day rests upon the identical ground that 
Abraham's faith rested on. The person that appears in 
the gospel and in the believer's life is the same person 
that communed and covenanted with the Patriarch. And 
the promise to and the Covenant with this man of God 
is the Covenant of grace presented in the gospel. Paul 
declares to the Galatians that the salvation the believer 
gets in Christ is the blessing promised to the seed of 
Abraham. None of the family of man since Abraham's 
day are included in the Covenant of grace, according to 
the divine election, except the children of Abraham; 
but all who exercise Abraham's faith in the promise of 
God, they are the children of Abraham. "Even as 
Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for 
righteousness. Know ye, therefore, that they which are 
of faith the same are the children of Abraham. And 
the scripture, foreseeing that God would justify the 
heathen through faith, preached before the gospel unto 
Abraham, saying, In thee shall all nations be blessed. 
So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful 
Abraham. . . . Now to Abraham and his seed 
were the promises made. He saith not, And to thy 
seeds, as of many ; but as of one, And to thy seed, 
which is Christ. . . . Por ye are all the children 
of God by faith in Christ Jesus. . . . And if ye 
be Christ's, then are ye Abraham's seed, and heirs ac- 
cording to the promise." 

This faith of Abraham implied a gracious nature, out 
of which sprang all the graces of the Spirit. The 
law of supreme love to God and love to our neighbor as 



90 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

to ourself was regarded by this man of God, though 
he trusted alone for acceptance to the grace of God. 
Wherever he goes he builds an altar to the Lord and 
calls on the name of the Lord ; and he listens to the 
Covenant of the Lord lying with his face on the ground. 
The memorial of this Covenant is observed in all his 
house, and the piety of the man of God is happily re- 
flected in even the servants of the family. When his 
servant goes to get a wife for Isaac, he looks to God 
for success, praying, " O Lord God of my master Abra- 
ham, I pray thee send me good speed this day and show 
kindness unto my master, Abraham." And when his 
prayer is answered, it is written, " And the man bowed 
down his head and worshipped the Lord, saying, 
Blessed be the Lord God of my master Abraham, who 
hath not left destitute my master of his mercy and his 
truth." When he reports to Rebekah's brother the 
prosperity of Isaac's father, he attributes it all to the 
Lord. " And the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, 
and he is become great; and he hath given him flocks 
and herds, and silver and gold, and men-servants and 
maid-servants, and camels and asses." There is truth 
in the proverb, Like master, like servant ! Abraham's 
nature was generous and noble to those near and to those 
far off. To his nephew Lot he gave the choice of the 
whole land for his flocks and herds, and when he was 
robbed and led captive by Chedorlaomer and his royal 
confederates, the Patriarch marshalled his home-forces 
and rescued his kinsman with much spoil. But of the 
spoil would he have none, as he would not accept from 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 91 

Ephron the field and Cave of Machpelah, saying to 
the King of Sodom, " I have lifted up mine hand unto 
the Lord, the most high God, the possessor of heaven 
and earth, that I will not take from a thread to a shoe- 
latchet, and that I >vill not take anything that is thine, 
lest thou shouldest say, I have made Abram rich." 
And his intercession for Lot, and for the cities of Sodom 
and Gomorrah, is the finest specimen of intercessory 
prayer recorded in the word of God. And it is written 
" God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the 
midst of the overthrow, when he overthrew the cities in 
which Lot dwelt." And worthy of note is it that the 
revelation of the divine purpose with regard to the 
cities of the plain, and the greater revelation to Sarah that 
she should be the mother of the saved nations of the 
earth, were given by the Lord while enjoying the liberal 
hospitality of the patriarch's tent. The picture of his 
conduct is beautifully drawn, " And he sat in the 
tent door in the heat of the day ; and he lifted up his 
eyes and looked, and lo, three men stood by him ; and 
when he saw them he ran to meet them from the tent 
door, and bowed himself toward the ground, and said : 
My Lord, if now I have found favor in thy sight, 
pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant : Let a 
little water, I pray you, be fetched and wash your feet, 
and rest yourselves under the tree, and I will fetch a 
morsel of bread and comfort ye your hearts ; after that 
ye shall pass on : for therefore are ye come to your 
servant. And they said, so do, as thou hast said." How 
different the treatment of this Lord, in the days of the 



92 the carpenter's son. 

Carpenter's Son, who had not where to lay his head ! 
This conduct of the man of God was an index to his 
goodly and godly character, and it was at this time 
that the Lord said : " Shall I hide from Abraham that 
thing which I do, seeing that Abraham shall surely 
become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations 
of the earth shall be blessed in him ? Tor I know him, 
that he will command his children and his household 
after him, and they shall keep the way of the Lord, to 
do justice and judgment ; that the Lord may bring upon 
Abraham that which he hath spoken of him." Abraham 
was not a fatalist ; he was no antinomian. The Lord 
knew that the man of God would work out his own 
salvation with fear and trembling, though the Lord 
had made a covenant of life with him and was working 
in him to will and to do of his own good pleasure. And 
is it not this generous, hospitable spirit of the Patriarch 
which gave shape to the precept of the gospel, "Be 
not forgetful to entertain strangers ; for thereby some 
have entertained angels unawares." The Father of the 
Faithful seemed an impersonation of gospel graces, 
which are thus summarized by Paul : — Faith, Hope, 
Charity — these three, but the greatest of these is 
Charity. 

And how great the honors conferred upon this man 
of God ! Melchizedek, the King of Salem and " the 
priest of the most high God," meets him with bread and 
wine and exclaims : " Blessed be Abram of the most 
high God, possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed 
be the most high God which hath delivered thine ene- 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 93 

mies into thine hand ! " To Abraham is given a son, 
who typifies the miraculous birth of the Carpenter's 
Son, and is offered upon Mount Moriah as a type of the 
death and resurrection of the lamb of God, that taketh 
away the sin of the world ! The name that the Lord him- 
self takes is " the God of Abraham ;" and the final state 
of heavenly rest is described as in Abraham's bosom. 
Great was the honor to Abraham, but greater was his 
honoring of the Lord. Melchizedek brought him 
bread and wine ; but he made an offering of a tenth to 
this priest of the most high God and King of Peace, 
who was the symbol of the regal and eternal priesthood 
of him who was known in the days of his humiliation 
as " the Carpenter's Son ;" but who stands in the holy 
of holies of the heavenly Temple, as our great High 
Priest " after the order of Melchizedek." Isaac was an 
honor to his father, but he was a living publication of 
the grand truths which enter the foundations of the 
house of God, which is to compass the good of heaven 
and of earth, and an outline of which was erected 
most clearly before the vision of Abraham when the 
Lord declared to him, as if the grand structure of hu- 
man redemption were already completed, " A father 
of many nations have I made thee." Thus was great 
progress made in the dawn of the patriarchal period, 
the very best material being selected, and the whole 
structure being revealed so sure of success that it is pre- 
sented as if already complete! Abraham's vision of the 
certified glory is thus depicted, " He looked for a city 
which hath foundations whose maker and builder is God." 



CHAPTER XIII. 

PATKIAKCHAL PEEIOD. 

OTHER PATRIARCHS. 

Jacob have I loved, but Esau have I hated. — Rom. ix. 13. 

IN the part of this period from Abraham to Moses, 
some fine material was selected and some very poor. 
The two extremes, Isaac and Joseph, were beautiful 
characters, intermediate ones were more or less hateful. 
One dark spot — his falsehood in Gerar- — blurs Isaac's 
fame; none Joseph's fair name. What shall be said of 
the lying and crafty Jacob, and the incestuous and 
brother-stealing Judah? Yet they are the chosen of 
the Lord, " that the purpose of God, according to elec- 
tion, might stand, not of works, but of him that call- 
eth." And a special design of this period seems the 
illustration of the absolute arbitrariness of the divine 
selection. It is distinctly stated that, before the tvyin- 
brothers, Esau and Jacob, were born, the latter was 
chosen above the former. And God's sovereignty in 
the matter is made more conspicuous by the divine pur- 
pose being carried out through the despicable conduct 
of Jacob's heartless shrewdness to secure his brother's 
birthright, and his blasphemous falsehood to secure 
his father's blessing; just as appeared in the decreed 
crucifixion of the Carpenter's Son, of whom Peter said to 
his murderers, " Him being delivered by the determin- 
94 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 95 

ate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, 
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain. " And 
w T hen Paul is discussing the divine sovereignty in the 
ninth chapter of Romans, he cites this very case of 
Jacob and Esau to illustrate that the Almighty u hath 
mercy on whom he will have mercy and whom he will 
he hardeneth." And how arbitrary the blessing of 
Ephraim above his older brother Maiiasseh, which the 
blinded Jacob had to do in an unnatural manner, and 
with the displeasure of Joseph, the darling of his 
bosom and the preserver of the life of his father and 
family ! " So then/' says Paul, " it is not of him that 
willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that show- 
eth mercy." 

ISAAC. 

The splendid faith of Abraham overshadows that of 
his son's, but the faith of Isaac is worthy not to be 
overlooked. At an early age this only Son of the 
Father of the Faithful must have learned that in him 
was the hope of the ages. The promise to Abraham 
was, " In Isaac shall thy seed be called." What then 
must have been his sentiments when bound on the altar 
in Mount Moriah ? What must have been his faith to 
be offered without a struggle or word? If the lan- 
guage applied by Isaiah to the Lamb of God that taketh 
away the sin of the world were applied to the typical 
Isaac the application would be complete, " He is 
brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep be- 
fore her shearers is dumb so he opened not his mouth. " 
And did the Evangelist Philip make no allusion to 



96 the cakpenter's son. 

Isaac when from this passage from the prophet "he 
preached unto the Ethiopian Jesus f " The faith of 
Isaac was probably thus sent through Ethiopia, and 
has thus been published, by the New Testament, 
throughout the world. Abraham's faith, in this trans- 
action, was the faith of the priest who offers the lamb ; 
the faith of Isaac, that of the voluntary lamb offered — 
the lamb of God himself! The language of the author 
of the Hebrews is equally applicable to the son with 
the father, "Accounting that God was able to raise him 
up, even from the dead ; from whence also he received 
him in a figure." From the time of this offering of 
himself, Isaac must have been a conscious, living evan- 
gel, carrying in himself the most striking publication of 
the truth as it is in Jesus that had ever been given to 
man. It is written of the faithful before his day, 
" These all died in faith, not having received the 
promises, but having seen them afar off, and were 
persuaded of them, and embraced them, and con- 
fessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the 
earth." Isaac too was a stranger and a pilgrim, but the 
promise was as nigh as his own person — the promise of 
Christ who, as the Lamb of God, was symbolized in 
Isaac's personal offering. Immediately after his father 
"gave up the ghost," the Lord appeared unto Isaac and 
" blessed him, and Isaac dwelt by the well Lahai-roi." 
The meaning of this dwelling-place is: "Of the living 
one who beholdest me." This associates itself with the 
Jehovah-jireh of Mount Moriah, " In the mountain of 
the Lord it shall be seen." In that mountain has been 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 97 

seen the foundations and edifice of the great type of the 
kingdom of heaven, whose main feature is the Lamb of 
God, ever beheld in emblem, by the living one, in the 
typical Isaac. The identical promise to the father is 
given to the Son, (t I will make thy seed to multiply as 
the stars of heaven, . . . and in thy seed shall all the 
nations of the earth be blessed." But, that this might 
be realized by him as it was by his father, not to be 
according to nature, but by the election of grace, his 
wife also brings forth as an answer to special interces- 
sion. " And Isaac entreated the Lord for his wife, be- 
cause she was barren : and the Lord was entreated of 
him, and Rebekah his wife conceived." The Lord 
Jehovah appeared to him again and again ; and he 
erected altars to him on which were offered sacrifices 
only less acceptable than his own sacrifice of himself; 
and he lived long enough to see fully established in his 
family the mysterious working of God's elective grace. 
Contrary to his own choice, he bestows the blessing, to 
be transmitted, upon Jacob, and that, by faith, before 
his son had seen Rachel or Leah. " God Almighty 
bless thee," said the aged patriarch, " and make thee 
fruitful, and multiply thee, that thou mayest be a mul- 
titude of people ; and give thee the blessing of Abra- 
ham, to thee, and to thy seed with thee; that thou mayest 
inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which 
God gave unto Abraham." The man of God sees the 
disinherited Esau taking wives of the daughters of Ca- 
naan, " which were a grief of mind unto Isaac and 
Rebekah ;" and twenty years after he had bestowed the 
7 



98 the carpenter's son. 

blessing upon Jacob, he welcomes him back to the land 
of promise, with wives from the family from which 
Abraham sprang ; with superabundance of the blessings 
of this world, according to the blessing-prayer of his 
father, " Therefore God give thee of the dew of heaven, 
and the fatness of the earth, and plenty of corn and 
wine ;" with tidings that the man Christ Jesus had ap- 
peared unto him in person, and changed his name, and 
given him a name that indicated that he was a prince 
in the spiritual service of prayer, and a name by which 
the people of God shall be known in all ages of the 
world ; with the heir apparent to the divine promises 
already born ; and with the w T hole land for possession 
undisputed before him, his rival and hating brother 
Esau, being reconciled and having emigrated with 
abundance from the land of promise. The blessing of 
Abraham upon Isaac had passed fully from Isaac to 
Jacob, who erected an altar, with the significant name, 
El-Elohe-Israel, "God, the God of Israel." First, 
Jehovah, the Lord Jesus, was "the God of Abraham ;" 
then "the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac." 
Now, he is " the God of Abraham, and Isaac, and 
Jacob." " And Isaac gave up the ghost and died, and 
was gathered unto his people, being old and full of 
days; and his sons, Esau and Jacob, buried him." 

JACOB. 

Jacob's experience was a bitter and a blessed one. 
He had no confidence in his children, except the two by 
his beloved Rachel ; and these ten children were a lying, 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 99 

licentious, murderous set, the exaggerations of the early 
folly and wickedness of their father, who, knowing him- 
self, had no faith in them. They did not deceive him 
even in the case of their crime against the beloved Joseph ; 
for thirteen years after they thought they had imposed 
upon the old man's credulity, he said to them: "Me 
have ye bereaved of Joseph/' He felt that he was in 
constant danger of having his " gray hairs brought down 
with sorrow to the grave/' And, in his dying hours, 
he surprised them by prophecies of their future derived 
from his treasured knowledge of the past, and the 
inspiration of God. His own deception of his aged 
father Isaac, and his ill-treatment of his brother Esau, 
all by the craft of his mother, Rebekah, which he seems 
to have inherited, came back upon him in his mother's 
family in Padan-aram, and in the terror with which 
his brother subsequently inspired him. But Jacob was 
a man of decided parts, and neither Laban nor Esau 
got ahead of him — though it hurt him badly, perhaps, 
that he had to buy oft" Esau at so high a price ! 

But Jacob was the elect of God. The great Archi- 
tect of all took him, as he took the cursing Peter and 
the persecuting Saul, to show his power in changing 
him into material meet for the heavenly work. Jacob 
communed "face to face" with the Carpenters Son, 
which he commemorated by the name he gave to the 
place where he wrestled with the nameless "man" for 
blessing — the name " Peniel." But, twenty years before 
this he had seen in vision a ladder reaching from earth 
to heaven, on which angels were ascending and de- 



100 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

scending. " And, behold, the Lord stood above it and 
said, I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and 
the God of Isaac ; the land whereon thou liest to 
thee will I give it, and to thy seed ; and thy seed shall 
be as the dust of the earth ; and thou shalt spread abroad 
to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and 
to the south ; and in thee and in thy seed shall all 
the families of the earth be blessed/' Here was the 
same old glorious promise to Abraham, which had been 
bestowed by Isaac, coming upon the elected Jacob from 
the lips of Jehovah himself. So awfully sacred and 
blessed was this place that he erected a pillar, in com- 
memoration, and poured oil upon it, calling it Bethel, 
for said he, " This is none other but the house of God, 
and this the gate of heaven!" And Jacob vowed a vow 
unto the Lord, and he was a new man. While in Padan- 
aram, the Lord appeared in person to him, calling him- 
self the " God of Bethel where thou anointedst the pillar, 
and vowed a vow unto me/' and his promised blessing 
never forsook the patriarch, who prospered ever by the 
hand of the Lord, as is the distinct record of the Spirit, 
and as was ever most humbly acknowledged by himself. 
Returning to the land of promise, and to his father 
Isaac, and dreading encounter with the injured Esau, he 
makes this confession and appeal : " Oh, God of my 
father Abraham, and God of my father Isaac, the Lord 
that said unto me : Return unto thy country and to thy 
kindred, and I will deal well with thee ; I am not 
worthy of the least of all the mercies and of all the truth, 
which thou hast showed unto thy servant ; for with my 



PATEIARCHAL PERIOD. 101 

staff I passed over this Jordan, and now I am become 
two bands. Deliver me, I pray thee, from the hand of 
my brother, from the hand of Esau ; for I fear him, lest 
he will come and smite me, and the mother with the 
children. And thou saidest, I will surely do thee good, 
and make thy seed as the sand of the sea, which cannot 
be numbered for multitude." This is the humble cry 
of a believing man of God. And he shows his faith by 
his works. He goes to Bethel — " the house of God ;" 
he strips from his family all the idols and signs of 
paganism and buries them out of sight ; and thus he 
u calls upon the name of the Lord." And not only is 
he delivered from Esau, by the hand of the Lord direct- 
ing Jacob's own practical wisdom, but " the terror of 
God was upon the cities that were round about them, 
and they did not pursue after the sons of Jacob." And 
evermore was the Lord with him, protecting, guiding, 
sanctifying and comforting. His greatest sorrow — the 
loss of Joseph — was more than compensated by finding 
him again, in such a position of usefulness and honor, 
and heaping coals upon his unnatural brothers by the 
preservation of their lives and the most unmeasured 
kindness to the whole family. He was honored by the 
friendship of the Pharaoh of Egypt, to whose inquiry 
of the venerable man of God, " How old art thou?" 
he beautifully and pathetically replied, " The days of 
the years of my pilgrimage are one hundred and thirty 
years : few and evil have the days of the years of my life 
been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of 
the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage. 



102 THE CARPENTERS SON. 

And Jacob blessed Pharaoh, and went out from before 
Pharaoh/' He had the inspired forecast to see the 
destiny of all his household ; and the spiritual honesty 
to tell the whole truth. And when he " gathered up his 
feet in his bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was 
gathered to his people/' he was honored by perhaps the 
grandest international funeral procession that ever fol- 
lowed mortal remains. " And Joseph went up to bury 
his father ; and with him went up all the servants of 
Pharaoh, the elders of his house, and all the elders of 
the land of Egypt. And all the house of Joseph, and 
his brethren, and his father's house ; . . . and there 
went up with him both chariots and horsemen ; and it 
was a very great company." And they mourned with 
" a very sore lamentation " for seven days. So that 
when the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw it, 
they said : " This is a grievous mourning to the Egypt- 
ians." Thus was fulfilled in him personally what his 
father had prayed in bis blessing: "Let people serve 
thee and nations bow dowm to thee. . . . Cursed be 
every one that curseth thee, and blessed be he that 
blesseth thee ;" and more especially what the Lord had 
said unto him, " And behold I am with thee, and will 
keep thee in all places whither thou goest, and will bring 
thee again into this land ; for I will not leave thee, 
until I have done that of w T hich I have spoken to thee of. 
... I will go down with thee unto Egypt ; and I 
will also surely bring thee up again ; and Joseph shall 
put his hands upon thine eyes." And they buried him 
in the cave of the field of Machpslah, which Abraham 



PATRIARCHAL PERIOD. 103 

bought with the field for a possession of a burying-place 
of Ephron, the Hittite, before Mamre." 

Israel's house that went into Egypt were " seventy 
souls." They had increased when Moses brought them 
out, perhaps twenty thousand-fold. How many of these, 
and of those that died in Egypt and in Canaan, the 
Carpenter's Son selected, for the permanent house of 
the Lord, there is no record of save in the Lamb's 
book of life ! 



CHAPTER XIV. 

OTHEE PATKIAKCHS. 

JUDAH. 

The sceptre shall not depart from Judah . . . until Shiloh come.-— 
Gen. xlix. 10. 

JUDAH was the fourth son of Jacob by his first wife, 
the " tender-eyed" Leah. His name means praise. 
He married the daughter of Shuah, and two of his sons 
— " wicked in the sight of the Lord " — died in Canaan. 
The sons that went into Egypt were Shelah, Pharez and 
Zarah. Pharez's sons were Hezron and Hamul. In 
the genealogy of the Carpenter's Son — " the son of Abra- 
ham " — we read : " Abraham begat Isaac ; and Isaac 
begat Jacob ; and Jacob begat Judas and his brethren ; 
and Judas begat Pharez and Zarah of Thamar; and 
Pharez begat Ezrotn, etc." Thus was the son of the 
Virgin Mary derived directly, according to human de- 
scent from Judah ; and he is called, indeed, " the lion of 
the tribe of Judah." 

Judah was chief among his brethren, but in the flesh 
he, like his sons Er and Onan, was wicked in the sight 
of the Lord. When he declared that Tamar, his daugh- 
ter-in-law, the mother of his twin boys Pharez and Zarah, 
should be burnt, he was pronouncing the capital sentence 
due to his own crime. It was he also that sold Joseph 
to the Midianite merchantmen, going into Egypt. But, 
104 



OTHER PATRIARCHS. 105 

the divine call of Judah is only another illustration of 
the elective grace of God, and of the power of the Lord 
unto the vilest of the children of man. And meet was 
it that Judah, who had sold his brother into Egypt, 
should be most prominent in the agonizing interviews 
with his aged father about Benjamin's going into Egypt; 
and with the exalted governor of the house of Pharaoh 
who had ordered it. When the sons of Jacob returned 
from Egypt with the corn they had bought, to save from 
starvation their father's house in Canaan, without Simeon 
and with the demand that Benjamin should go back with 
them, as the condition prescribed for getting any more 
corn, the heart of the old man was torn in grief. He 
more than intimated that they had killed their brothers, 
crying, " Me have ye bereaved of my children ; Joseph 
is not, and Simeon is not, and ye will take Benjamin 
away ; all these things are against me." Reuben, his 
first-born, had protested, " Slay my two sons, if I bring 
him not to thee ;" but the old man said, " My son shall 
not go down with you, ... ye bring down my gray 
hairs with sorrow to the grave." But Judah, the strong- 
est of the brethren, throws himself into the painful col- 
loquy, and with smitings of conscience as he witnesses 
his father's anguish about Joseph, and his darling last- 
born, he, with more ingenuity than Reuben, rather de- 
mands, " Send the lad with me, and we will arise and 
go ; that we may live and not die, both w r e, and those, 
and also our little ones. I will be surety for him ; of 
my hand shalt thou require him ; if I bring him not 
unto thee, and set him before thee, then let me bear the 



106 the carpenter's SON. 

blame forever." The old man, yielding, said : " God 
Almighty give you mercy before the man, that he may 
send away your other brother, and Benjamin. If I be 
bereaved, I am bereaved." And did not God Almighty 
have mercy on Judah's soul also? And how terribly is 
his heart wrung now, when, after they get the corn and 
are returning with it and Benjamin, they are arrested 
because of the silver cup found in Benjamin's sack ! 
It is written, "And Judah and his brethren came to 
Joseph's house; and they fell before him on the ground. 
And Judah said, What shall we say unto my lord ? — 
What shall we speak ? or how shall we clear ourselves ? 
God hath found out the iniquity of thy servants ; be- 
hold we are my lord's servants, both we, and he also with 
whom the cup is found." What a revelation this speech 
to the lord of Pharaoh's house of the aroused conscience 
of Judah as well as of the agony of his heart. But, 
the steel must be driven deeper into his soul by the 
spiritual sagacity of the man and by the grace of God. 
Judah's cup was full when the lord said, " God forbid 
that I should do so : but the man in whose hand the 
cup is found, he shall be my servant : and as for you, 
get you up in peace unto your father." Think of the 
fearfully mocking words, in peace unto your father ! 
This was too much for human nature to endure. The 
man that " spake as never man spake " was no doubt 
by the side of the elected Judah from whom he himself 
in the flesh was to spring, and the son of Jacob and the 
brother of Benjamin gave utterance to the most beautiful 
and touching address of which there is record on any 



OTHER PATRIARCHS. 107 

page sacred or profane. It is worthy to be studied as a 
perfect model of natural, and gracious pathos, nothing 
less than the inspiration of the Carpenter's Son himself, 
who is touched by a feeling of our infirmities and was 
himself a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. 
" Then Judah came near unto him, and said, Oh my 
lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in my 
lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy 
servant ; for thou art even as Pharaoh. My lord asked 
his servants, saying, Have ye a father or a brother ? 
And we said unto thy lord, We have a father, an old man, 
and a child of his old age, a little one ; and his brother 
is dead and he alone is left of his mother, and his father 
loveth him. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Bring 
him down unto me, that I may set mine eyes upon him. 
And we said unto my lord, The lad cannot leave his 
father; for if he should leave his father, his father 
would die. And thou saidst unto thy servants, Except 
your youngest brother come down with you, ye shall see 
my face no more. And it came to pass when we came 
up unto thy servant my father, we told him the words of 
my lord. And our father said, Go again and bring us a 
little food. And we said, We cannot go down : if our 
youngest brother be with us, then will we go down : 
for we may not see the man's face, except our youngest 
brother be with us. And thy servant my father said 
unto us, Ye know that my wife bare me two sons : And 
the one went out from me and I said, Surely he is torn 
in pieces ; and I saw him not since : And if ye take 
this also from me, and mischief befall him, ye shall 



108 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

bring down my gray hairs with sorrow to the grave. 
Now, therefore, when I come to thy servant my father, 
and the lad is not with us ; seeing that his life is bound 
up in the lad's life; it shall come to pass, when he seeth 
that the lad is not with us, that he will die : and thy 
servants shall bring down the gray hairs of thy servant 
our father with sorrow to the grave. For thy servant 
became surety for the lad unto my father, saying, If 
I bring him not unto thee, then shall I bear the blame 
to my father forever. Now, therefore, I pray thee, let 
thy servant abide instead of the lad, a bondman to my 
lord ; and let the lad go up with his brethren. For 
how shall I go up to my father, and the lad be not with 
me ? lest peradventure I see the evil that shall come 
upon my father." 

This broke Joseph's heart. He could stand it no 
longer. He wept aloud, so that the Egyptians and the 
house of Pharaoh heard, saying: "lam Joseph your 
brother, whom ye sold into Egypt. Now, therefore, be 
no more grieved nor angry with yourselves that ye sold 
me hither ; for God did send me before you to preserve 
life. . . . And he fell upon his brother Benjamin's 
neck, and wept; and Benjamin wept upon his neck. 
Moreover, he kissed his brethren, and wept upon them ; 
and after that his brethren talked with him." 

This is what the eloquent speech of Judah did ; and 
more did it, by the grace of God, it brought up to Egypt 
the aged patriarch, who, when dying, pronounced the 
blessing upon Judah thus : " Judah thou art he whom 
thy brothers shall praise ; thy hand shall be in the neck 



OTHER PATRIARCHS. 109 

of thy enemies ; thy father's children shall bow down 
before thee. Judah is a lion's whelp : from the prey, 
my son, thou art gone up : he stooped down, he 
crouched as a lion, and as an old lion ; who shall rouse 
him up ? The Sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor 
a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come ; 
and unto him shall the gathering of the people be. 
Binding his foal unto the vine, and his ass's colt unto 
the choice vine ; he washed his garments in wine, and 
his clothes in the blood of grapes ; his eyes shall be red 
with wine and his teeth white with milk." 

And the Lord was ever with the house of Judah. In 
the numbering in the wilderness his family numbered 
" three-score and sixteen thousand and five hundred." 
When the elders of the people wished to bless the marriage 
of Boaz and Ruth they said to Boaz, a progenitor of the 
family of the Carpenter's Son, "Let thy house be like the 
house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah of the 
seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young woman." 

More celebrated than all the other tribes was the tribe 
of Judah, and more famous than all other lands was the 
land of Judah. The name of Judah is mentioned in 
the word of God not less than eight hundred and twenty- 
three times. In fact, most of the recorded dealings of 
God with the world's history is in connection with the 
tribe and the land of Judah, w T here were Jerusalem, and 
the Temple, and Bethlehem of which it is written: 
" And thou Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, art not 
the least among the princes of Judah ; for out of thee 
shall come a Governor that shall rule my people Israel." 



110 THE CAKPENTER ? S SON. 

JOSEPH. 

Israel loved Joseph more than all his children. — Gen. xxxvii. 3. 

Joseph was the most beautiful character of sacred 
history, the son of Joseph of Nazareth alone excepted. 
There seemed no need in his biography to make special 
mention of the Lord's presence with him ; for his whole 
life was an illustration of his walk with God. He was 
distinguished among his brethren not merely by his 
"coat of many colors/' but by a character superior to 
theirs in every respect. He loved God and abhorred 
evil. Hence the Lord preserved the innocence of his 
youth, gave him visions of his future greatness, and 
overruled the envy and hatred of his brothers to his 
great glory and to their own salvation. In Egypt, the 
God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob was manifestly 
with him, giving him firmness to resist temptation, wis- 
dom to interpret royal dreams, and statesmanship to 
manage the affairs of a great nation in a fearful emer- 
gency, with the most eminent prudence, benevolence and 
success. The name of God was glorified in this imper- 
sonation of divine goodness and graciousness. His 
dealing with the matter of his brethren and the whole 
family is beyond praise. His honoring of his father 
and his forgiveness of his brethren, and his recognition 
of the divine hand in the whole transaction, while he 
preserves the greatest fidelity to his office and his king, 
are thoroughly Christian, and bespeak the Carpenter's 
Son by his side, his counselor and his friend. And 
now the highest of honors—higher than the glory of 



OTHER PATRIARCHS. Ill 

Egypt — is put upon him by the birthright of Jacob 
being bestowed upon him. Judah, according to the 
election, received the blessing to be transmitted, but the 
birthright is given to Joseph and his sons. The official 
chronicle (1 Chron. v. 1, 2) is, "Reuben was the first- 
born of Israel ; but, forasmuch as he defiled his father's 
bed, the birthright was given unto the sons of Joseph, 
the son of Israel; and the genealogy is not to be reck- 
oned after the birthright. For Judah prevailed above 
his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but, the 
birthright was Joseph's." Hence the grand blessing of 
the dying patriarch upon his son, and his son's sons : 
11 Joseph is a fruitful bough, even a fruitful bough by a 
well; w T hose branches run over the wall: The archers 
have sorely grieved him, and shot at him, and hated 
him : But his bow abode in strength, and the arms of 
his hands were made strong by the hands of the Mighty 
God of Jacob (from whence is the shepherd, the stone 
of Israel); Even by the God of thy father, who shall 
keep thee; and by the Almighty, who shall bless thee 
with blessings of heaven above, blessings of the deep 
that lieth under, blessings of the beasts and of the 
womb : The blessings of thy father have prevailed above 
the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound 
of the everlasting hills: they shall be as the head of 
Jacob, and on the crown of the head of him that was 
separate from his brethren. . . . And he blessed the 
sons of Joseph and said, God, before whom my fathers 
Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God that fed me all 
my life long unto this day, the Angel which redeemed 



112 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

rae from all evil, bless the lads ; and let my name be 
named on them, and the name of my fathers Abraham 
and Isaac; and let them grow into a multitude in the 
midst of the earth. . . . And he blessed them that 
day saying, In thee shall Israel bless, saying, God make 
thee as Ephraim and as Manasseh : and he set Ephraim 
before Manasseh." 

But the end comes even to a life so beautiful as 
Joseph's. " And Joseph said unto his brethren, I die : 
and God will surely visit you, and bring you out of this 
land unto the land which he swareto Abraham, to Isaac 
and to Jacob. And Joseph took an oath of the chil- 
dren of Israel, saying, God will surely visit you, and ye 
shall carry up my bones from hence. So Joseph died, 
being a hundred and ten years old : and they embalmed 
him, and he was put in a coffin in Egypt." 

It was said that Jacob's funeral procession was the 
greatest the world ever saw. But, on reflection, was 
not Joseph's greater? When Moses led out the six 
hundred thousand men of war, besides women and 
children, from Egypt to the promised land, it is written : 
" And Moses took the bones of Joseph with him; for 
he hadstraitly sworn the children of Israel, saying, God 
will surely visit you ; and ye shall carry up my bones 
away hence with you." And thus was carried across 
the Red Sea the remains of the man who brought a 
family into Egypt that it might become a great nation, 
who now bear him back to the sepulchre of his fathers ! 

And when Moses came to his end, his blessing upon 
Joseph was above the blessing of all the other tribes : 



OTHER PATRIARCHS. 113 

u And of Joseph he said, Blessed of the Lord be his 
land, for the precious things of heaven, for the dew, and 
for the deep that coucheth beneath, and for the precious 
fruit brought forth by the sun, and for the precious 
things put forth by the moon, and for the chief 
things of the ancient mountains, and for the precious 
things of the lasting hills, and for the precious things 
of the earth and the fulness thereof, and for the good 
will of him that dwelt in the bush : let the blessing 
come upon the head of Joseph, and upon the top of the 
head of him that was separate from his brethren. His 
glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns 
are like the horns of unicorns ; with them he shall 
push the people together to the ends of the earth : and 
they are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are 
the thousands of Manasseh." 

And even David, when he would make the most pow- 
erful appeal to the Almighty, calls upon him as the 
God of Joseph, and of his sons Ephraim and Manasseh, 
and of his brother Benjamin, saying, " Give ear, O 
Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph likea flock ; 
thou that dwellest between the cherubim, shine forth, 
Before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh, stir up 
thy strength, and come and save us." 

From these samples of the patriarchal periods, some 
estimate may be made of the nature and quantity of the 
material collected for the Lord's house, and the progress 
of the construction, by the grace and presence of the 
great architect of all, the tsxtwv of Nazareth, who was 
called the Carpenter's Son. And of the divine care of 
8 



114 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

the Lord's house we get a striking intimation in the fact 
that from the man and woman called out of Ur of the 
Chaldees, to start the house of the Lord, there arises a 
people now perhaps not less than two millions* 



CHAPTER XV. 

MOSAIC PEEIOD. 

For the law was given by Moses ; but grace and truth came by 
Jesus Christ — John i. 17. 

THIS period may be represented by three facts : The 
Passover, the giving of the Law, and the erection of 
the Tabernacle ; which facts, as well as the settlement 
in Canaan, and the Temple and City of Jerusalem, sug- 
gest and imply the elements of organization and congre- 
gation for the service of God, which were not known in 
the Patriarchal period ; and which are, in the period be- 
fore us, a foreshadowing of more perfect organization 
and congregation of God's people, which lie at the basis 
of their usefulness, and are the type of their future and 
eternal state of worship and glory. 

THE PASSOVER. 

For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us. — 1 Cor. v. 7. 

This was a means to an end. God remembered his 
covenant with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, and after 
" the children of Israel " had been four hundred and 
thirty years in Egypt, and had grown to a multitude so 
great that it is said " the land was filled with them," he 
resolved to settle them in the land promised and " flow- 
ing with milk and honey." To accomplish this pur- 

115 



116 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

pose three things must be accomplished : The Hebrews 
themselves must desire to depart ; the hand of Pharaoh 
must be controlled ; and Israel must revive their faith 
in the God of their fathers. The excessive oppression 
of their task-masters, by the order of Pharaoh provi- 
dentially brought about, accomplished the first neces- 
sity ; for " the Egyptians made their lives bitter with 
hard bondage." The last necessity was achieved by the 
Lord appearing personally to Moses, as the Lord Jeho- 
vah, whose name is " I am that I am," and giving him 
the power to perform wonderful miracles which none 
others could perform ; so that this man not only became 
great in the eyes of the Egyptians, but the children of 
Israel believed in him and in the God who did by him 
these mighty works. With regard to Pharaoh, he was 
a fit subject for ruin. But God used him awhile to ex- 
hibit his glory to his people and to the Egyptians ; and 
by the supreme method of spreading death through the 
land, the Lord relaxed the grasp of the hardened tyrant, 
and he sent away the people; over whom the Angel of 
Death had passed because the posts of their doors were 
besprinkled with the blood of a lamb. This salvation 
was the means for giving the highest glory to the Cove- 
nant-keeping God, and was the pledge of every other 
needed good. The Lord God, who delivers them from 
death and bondage in Egypt, will, despite their fears, 
destroy Pharaoh who pursues them ; and Amalek, who, 
with Og and Sihon, would impede their way. He will 
give them, notwithstanding their murmurs, water to 
drink and bread to eat. He will organize their mass by 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 117 

the wise suggestion of Jethro in the wilderness. And 
he, even he, the Jehovah Jesus, will attend them all 
the way, a pillar of cloud by day, and a pillar of fire 
by night. The feast of the Passover was, therefore, to 
be a perpetual ordinance. This would bring the people 
together in congregational worship of the Lord ; this 
would commemorate a salvation which implies all other 
blessings of the Lord, and which was worthy to be 
commemorated by the Sabbath, restored now to honor 
not only the God of nature, but the God of grace ; and 
this feast was the adumbration of another ordinance 
which should celebrate a greater salvation, invol- 
ving all good for time and for eternity, by the 
blood of the Lamb of God, of whom it is written : "For 
even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." And all 
this matter of Moses and the deliverance of his people 
had, even in their own eyes, a broader view than merely 
a chapter of human history, the record being, " By faith, 
Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the 
Son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer 
affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the 
pleasures of sin for a season ; esteeming the reproach of 
Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt : for 
he had respect to the recompense of reward. By faith 
he forsook Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the King ; 
for he endured, as seeing him who is invisible," with 
whom he had talked face to face, as the " I am that lam " 
of this period, and the Carpenter's Son of a period 
to come. And do not the song of Moses and the tim- 
brel and dance of Miriam, on the eastern bank of the 



118 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

Red Sea, suggest the joy and praises that should fill the 
lives of God's people saved, by the blood of the Lamb, 
with " the great salvation " ? 

THE LAW. 

What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, — 
Rom. viii. 3. 

Under the most solemn and awful circumstances, the 
Lord God gave on Sinai to his people, through Moses, 
the law which was to replace the obliterated law written 
on the human heart, and which was subsequently summed 
up, by the divine giver himself, in supreme love to God 
and love to neighbor as to self. In addition to the 
Decalogue, the ten commandments, which lie at the 
foundation of all other laws acceptable in the sight of 
God, were given many statutes, for the social, political 
and religious government of the Theocracy that the Lord 
was now establishing on earth. And these statutes were 
not to have application alone to this people. Many of 
them commend themselves so fully to human reason that 
a distinguished statesman has remarked that, wherever 
the laws of men do not accord with these laws, the dis- 
position of the human heart is to follow the statutes of 
the Almighty rather than the commandments of man's 
government. This is specially true with regard to laws 
regulating, or not regulating, social relations. The 
statutes with regard to religious concerns look commonly 
to the holiness of the worshipper, whether an official or 
unofficial — either positive holiness, by the imitation of 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 119 

divine goodness which is ever making offerings ; or neg- 
ative holiness, in purging conscience and heart and life 
by the blood of atoning sacrifice. The Priest — the 
people's guide — was to have engraven on his forehead : 
Holiness to the Lord. The whole system was a 
perfect one, unlike any other that had appeared among 
men, and was a distinguishing mark that made the 
children of Israel more than ever abhorred by the nations, 
and the nations despised by them. Moses protested 
before Pharaoh that Israel must go into the wilderness 
to worship, for their sacrifices were " abominations to the 
Egyptians," who would " stone them." No code could 
keep the mind more constantly on the great object of 
worship and none could so perfectly develop the moral 
nature of man. In fact, no light from above has to this 
day improved upon the moral code given by God to 
Moses as a standard and regulation for human conduct. 
This is the law of holy conduct to-day, as much as it 
was in the days of the holy men of old. Paul and 
Peter and John were guided by it, as were Moses and 
Samuel and Daniel and Nehemiah and all the other 
illustrious examples of faith and holiness of the past. 
It was declared, when the law was given, that it was to 
make Israel a holy nation of royal priests, from which a 
Christian apostle borrows the definition of the followers 
of the Carpenter's Son, as "a chosen generation, a royal 
priesthood, a holy nation." The Carpenter's Son him- 
self said "the law is holy, just and good ;" and David 
sings, "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the 
soul: the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the 



120 THE CAKPENTER/s SON. 

simple. . . . Moreover, by them is thy servant 
warned, and in keeping of them there is great reward." 
There could be no higher human perfection than by 
perfect obedience to this law of God. It is not strange, 
therefore, that the Hebrews ever held their law in the 
highest estimation and contended for it with the greatest 
zeal, whenever it seemed to be assailed. In the days of 
the Carpenter's Son on earth, this defence appeared a 
craze, which blinded them even to the miraculous testi- 
mony that they were warring against the author and the 
finisher of the law himself. Any seeming assault upon 
this divine code was to them prima facie evidence either 
of insanity or of diabolism, which they thought it was 
duty to God to cast out or destroy. 

But, the very day the law was given, Israel proved 
themselves unequal to its observance by the manufacture 
of a false god, by the hand of their highest religious 
official, in contravention of the two first laws of that 
moral code. This shocking demonstration of human 
inability to keep God's law threw Moses himself into 
momentary despair, made him slay three thousand of 
the idolaters on the spot, and wish to blot himself out as 
an atonement for the sin. And he positively refused to 
go forward with the people, without a new guarantee of 
the Divine presence — the presence of the Covenant- 
keeping Jehovah, who would fulfill his promises to 
Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, because he had promised, 
and not on the ground that their children had kept the 
exalted and perfect law that he had given amid the 
thunders and lightnings of Sinai. 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 121 

And here let it be remarked that the hope of Moses, 
and Samuel, and Daniel, and Nehemiah, and all the 
rest of the worthies and godly under the Mosaic system 
was the identical hope of Abraham and Isaac and 
Jacob. These three patriarchs were fully conscious of 
being vile sinners under the law of nature written in 
their hearts, of which this law of Moses was only a re- 
vised transcript. But, they hoped in the Covenant of 
Grace, as expressed in the promises of Jehovah. The 
law w r as to the pious under it the standard of holiness 
after which they strived; but it was, in no wise, held the 
ground of their acceptance with God. In fact, the very 
perfection of the law gave them the greater conscious- 
ness of imperfection, drove them more earnestly to the 
blood of the atoning lamb, and made them cling more 
tenaciously to the Covenant- keeping Jehovah, as their 
" shield and exceeding great joy." 

Indeed, so exacting was the law, in every department 
of the theocratic government, and so terrible were the 
executions of its penalties, all through the legal ages, 
without regard to name or position — whether the trans- 
gressor was peasant, priest, prophet or king, whether 
man, woman or child — of which we have so many fear- 
ful instances in the wilderness and in Canaan, that it 
might appear that one object of this formal promulga- 
tion and of these terrible executions of the law was to 
drive man, Jew and Gentile, to despair of himself for 
salvation, and to force him upon the Covenant-keeping 
God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. 

When the Carpenter's Son, who had given that law 



122 the carpenter's son. 

on Sinai, came to revive more clearly the original 
ground of human hope, and to show how alone that 
perfect law could be fulfilled, the Jew, enraged at the 
implication against his personal righteousness and his 
prerogatives as the lineal descendant from Abraham, 
assailed the Son of man as a blasphemer against his law 
and holy religion, and could be satisfied with nothing 
short of his blood, while the giver and expounder of 
the law charged them openly as arrant hypocrites, and 
the children of the devil himself. And much of the 
work of the apostolical expounders of the truth was to 
encounter and overthrow these false notions of the Jew 
that he had the promise of Abraham by descent and by 
the fulfillment of the law of God. The first error Paul 
completely overthrows by showing from Scripture that 
in the personal family of Abraham himself one son 
was rejected, while the other was made the heir of 
the promise ; and the claim that the law was the 
ground of salvation to the Gentile, or to any, he also 
shows was contrary to the first principles of even human 
justice. For, says he, "the Covenant which was con- 
firmed before of Christ, the law which was 430 years after 
cannot disannul that it should make the promise of none 
effect." Elsewhere he intimates that the law was given 
"that the offence might abound" — might abound before 
human consciousness in order to force unto Christ. And 
he plainly says, " The law was added because of transgres- 
sion, till the seed should come to whom the promise was 
made. . . . Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster 
to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 123 

faith." As to salvation, the language of the law is, 
" Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things 
that are written in the law to do them." Then how can 
the soul depend on the law for salvation ? But, " Christ 
hath redeemed us from the law, being made a curse for 
us," and thus he becomes "the end of the law for 
righteousness to every one that believeth." Hence he 
affirmed that he came not " to destroy the law but to 
fulfill." When he gave the law to Moses, talking to 
him " face to face as a man talketh to his friend," he 
knew that he alone could fulfill that code, which he pro- 
posed to do, as man's substitute, in order to meet the 
condition of the Covenant of Grace, made in the eternal 
Council of God, whereon the promise of salvation is 
made, " without money and without price," as preached 
by the prophet Isaiah. 

A prominent feature of this legal system was the re- 
quirement for many and regular " convocations " of the 
people for worship. In earlier days God's people were 
known as individuals or families : now they are to ap- 
pear in great congregations. This was marked progress 
in the Lord's house, which is not only to be regulated 
by fixed and known law, but to be presented to men 
and angels as the frequently congregating Family of 

God. 

TABERNACLE. 

Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the taberna- 
cle : for see, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern 
showed thee in the mountain, — Heb. viii. 5. 

The tabernacle was a model — rather a sketch, of the 

model — of God's house which was to be subsequently 



124 the cakpentek's son. 

erected in the metropolitan city of the children of Israel. 
And worthy of attention are some of the objects, the 
elements, the furniture and the offices of this etching of 
the Lord's house; and also its application to the present 
House of God. 

I. Objects. 

1. The first object of the tabernacle was to make a 
place for the regular manifestation of the God of Israel. 
He had appeared in the bush to Moses ; on the top of a 
ladder to Jacob ; in the Mount of the Lord to Isaac ; 
on the plains of Mamre to Abraham. But, now, he is 
to have for the eyes of Israel a local habitation and a 
name. — Ex. xxix. 45. The human heart demands 
some visible representation of the Most High. If God 
does not give it, man will make it. Hence the idola- 
tries of the world. 

2. Another object was for the localization of the 
religious thoughts and sentiments of the people. There 
is no association more powerful than that connected 
with locality. Hence the power of home and school 
and country. Thus the Lord would concentrate and 
intensify the religious elements of his people for their 
greater edification and utility. 

3. Again, thus could they be better instructed in 
their relations to each other, and as a family whose head 
was the Lord. There might be secret communications 
to the individual soul, which is very important ; but 
there is much that Israel is to know in common ; and 
the Tabernacle and its surroundings (Ex. 35) afforded 
the best conditions for its reception. 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 125 

4. The Tabernacle furnished a rallying point on 
every emergency. Here the people could repair, hear 
the voice of the Lord, look into the faces of each other, 
touch each other s elbows, and be thus better prepared 
for any special occasion that might come upon them. 

5. The reason of this construction being a tabernacle 
or tent is obvious. They were travelers — " pilgrims 
and strangers ;" and they had to carry with them the 
house of the Lord. This is suggestive of the great 
truth that, whatever be our pursuit, whatever our occu- 
pation, whatever our locality, whatever our emergency, 
we may still " dwell in the house of the Lord/' 

II. Elements. 

1. The most prominent element was that the Taber- 
nacle was divinely constructed. The Lord did not give 
merely the order for the erection of this house ; he gave 
a pattern of it in every particular. Not only did he 
determine the kind of material of every sort, but the 
quality and shape and color and arrangement. It was 
the Lord's work in every detail and in the perfect 
whole. 

2. The workmen employed were inspired for their 
work. It is said, not only that God gave them the 
spirit of wisdom and understanding to do the work, but 
that they were possessed of " the spirit of God/' They 
were inspired by God's Spirit, as were the penmen of 
God's word. 

3. Another element was that the material for the 
construction was the contribution of willing hearts. 



126 the carpenter's son. 

Not only were " the wise-hearted " called upon, but 
" the willing-minded." And only the material of such 
went into the structure. It is well to note here that it 
is a wise thing to build the house of the Lord ; and that 
these builders were so liberally-minded that they had to 
be checked in their contributions ; for the offerings they 
made were " too much/' 

4. And this construction went up amid the adverse 
circumstances of a life in the wilderness, traveling, and 
surrounded by enemies, as if to suggest that God's work, 
with his presence, does not depend on what seem, in the 
eyes of men, favorable circumstances. " Not by might, 
nor power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." 

III. Furniture and Offices. 

1. There was furniture for purification, for offerings, 
for sacrifices, for instruction, for the testimony of the 
divine presence in the past, and for his present manifes- 
tation. 

2. There were offices for the stated and proper obser- 
vances of the Lord's house, and places for all classes of 
worshippers. Especially were there arrangements for 
the great atonement-sacrifice, which the High Priest 
was to make for the sins of the people, without which 
there could be no divine manifestation. 

3. Finally, there was the awful symbol of the Lord 
God before the eyes of the people, which appeared as 
the crowning of the completed work, and never forsook 
the children of Israel in their journey. The record is, 
u So Moses finished the work. Then a cloud covered 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 127 

the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord 
filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter 
into the tent of the congregation, because the cloud 
abode thereon, and the glory of the Lord filled the 
tabernacle. . . . And the cloud of the Lord was 
upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was upon it by 
night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout 
all their journeys." 

IV. Application of Tabernacle. 

The Tabernacle was an imposing symbol . It originated 
in Mount Sinai blazing, like a furnace, with the presence 
of the Lord God. It was twin born with the Law and 
the Judgments of Jehovah. These latter were insti- 
tuted for the foundation of character, individual and 
associated, with reference to duty to God and to man. 
They were didactic — to be learned by the mind and by the 
heart. The tabernacle was a picture of the character as 
it should be, embodying to the eye all of the elements of 
reformed humanity and of the kingdom of heaven, not 
only so far as they had been, but as they should be de- 
veloped in the history of the world and the grace of 
God to his chosen people. In the material and con- 
struction and furniture and appointments of the Taber- 
nacle, as has been said, there were plainly set forth in 
figure, the elements of character, individual and asso- 
ciated, which it was the will of God to upbuild among 
men : 1. Elected. 2. God ordained. 3. Costly. 
4. Harmonious. 5. Beautiful. 6. Glorious. 7. By 
the needed altar. 8. With a consecrated Priesthood. 



128 the carpenter's son. 

9. All under the Divine presence, on a Mercy Seat, over 
the ark of the testimony of his holiness, grace, and 
power ; and flanked by emblems of him as the bread of 
life and the light of the world. 

But some of the features of this picture of the char- 
acter of the kingdom of heaven and its subjects should 
be noticed more in detail. See: 1. The costliness of 
the tabernacle, as given in the 38th chapter of Exodus, 
was great ; and how costly the kingdom of heaven 
erected by offering more precious than silver and gold. 
Might not each ask, "What the price of my soul? What 
should I not give to complete God's house on earth, in 
heaven?" 

2. The material most freely offered by the " wise- 
hearted " and " willing-minded," so that the offerings 
had to be restrained ; thus the kingdom must be up- 
builded by minds and hearts made free and loving by 
the regenerating power of the Holy Spirit. 

3. The directors of this building were wise-hearted 
men, in whom u the Lord had put the spirit of wisdom 
and understanding." Thus should it be in the edifica- 
tion of the house of the Lord — the leaders must be the 
called and the sanctified of the Lord. The extreme con- 
secration of the High Priest by washing, anointing, 
clothing with " holy garments," and by publication from 
the engraven gold on his person of "Holiness to the 
Lord," typified the perfect High Priest who enters into 
the Holy of Holies in heaven ; and he says to his min- 
isters and to the " royal priesthood," Be ye holy as I 

AM HOLY. 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 129 

4. And what exactness in repeating every part of the 
work done on and in the Tabernacle to show that it was 
exactly according to the pattern previously detailed as 
11 the pattern given in the Mount." This repetition is 
intensely interesting. It gives an awfulness to the mat- 
ter of erecting the house of the Lord. Should the real 
house be less carefully erected than the model ? How 
should the builders cry : " Lord, what wouldest 
thou have us to do ? " And, if they expect 
God's glory to fill the house and abide upon it, 
should it not be said of it, as it is written of 
the Tabernacle : " the children of Israel did according 
to all that the Lord commanded Moses. . . . And 
Moses did look upon all the work, and behold, they had 
done it as the Lord had commanded, even so had they 
done it : and Moses blessed them." 

5. The Tabernacle v^as a three-fold covering for the 
Divine presence with God's people ; so must he not be 
enshrined in the three-fold nature of his children ? 

6. As to the work of that presence, w 7 as it not repre- 
sented by the contents of the Ark of the Covenant, the 
mercy seat which covered it and on which he was mani- 
fested between the cherubim, and the altar of incense, 
the show-bread, and the lighted lamp before him ? As 
then, so now and evermore. 

7. The Altar and the Laver suggest our need, and 
the need in all ages, of a purged conscience by the blood 
of sacrifice applied as it was to all parts of the taber- 
nacle, as well as to the ministers at the altar ; and the 
purification, not only of hands and feet, but of the 

9 



130 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

heart and life by the waters of regeneration and of per- 
sonal holiness. The anointing oil is not only for Aaron 
but for the whole of the "holy nation." 

8. The Tabernacle was outside of the camp. The 
world and the church must be separate. There was a 
Court in the Tabernacle for any and all ; but the Court 
was not of the Camp, but of the Tabernacle. More 
than Moses stands in the door of the church and cries : 
" Who is on the Lord's side, let him come unto me." 

9. They that truly come are the chosen, "the elect, 
precious/' with whom alone the Lord's house is to be 
built. 

10. In the days of the Tabernacle, by the eye was 
constantly taught the character and church-building of 
the dpxtTsxvtov of human destiny as well of the mate- 
rial universe ; in our day of the Gospel Church, how 
much more light may be acquired by prayerful study 
and godly living ? Proper care of the Tabernacle, cov- 
ering the ark as the human person contains the Lord as 
the hope of glory, was held as important as the observ- 
ance of the Decalogue and the statutes of Moses. Is 
less care due the church ? The right use of the ark and 
tabernacle brought blessing ; the abuse, fearful cursing ! 
What now of the use and abuse of the Lord's house ? 
The Tabernacle was one of the three ante-christian 
pivotal points of human progress, the other two being 
the Ark and the Temple : all of them representing the 
human and divine building of the Carpenter's Son. 

Moses' farewell address, which is the contents of the 
Book of Deuteronomy, is a wonderful record of all the 



MOSAIC PERIOD. 131 

divine building work in the wilderness, by one of the 
most wonderful men of the world's history. He died in 
Nebo, the Lord Jehovah alone with him. The 
Lord buried him. Of the dead man's body, we 
have, by the pen of Jude, this singular record : 
"Yet, Michael, the archangel, when contending 
with the devil, he disputed about the body of Moses, 
durst not bring against him a railing accusation, but 
said, the Lord rebuke thee.'"' 

His divinely written epitaph is : " And there arose 
not a prophet since like unto Moses, whom the Lord 
knew face to face. In all the signs and the wonders 
which the Lord sent him to do in the land of Egypt, to 
Pharaoh, and to all his servants, and to all his land, and 
in all that mighty hand, and in all the great terror which 
Moses showed in the sight of all Israel." 



CHAPTER XVI. 

SALIENT POINTS OF MOSAIC ECONOMY. 

Without the shedding of blood there is no remission. — Heb. ix. 22. 
Holiness becometh thy house, Lord, forever. — Ps. xciii. 5. 
Remember the Sabbath day to keep it holy. — Ex. xx. 8. 
He that believeth not shall be damned. — Mark xvi. 16. 

GLANCING over the legal system of Moses, the mind 
is struck with four prominent features, which it may 
be well, before progressing, to impress more deeply on 
the hearts of God's people, as builders of the Lord's 
house. I refer to the prominence given to Sacrifice, 
Holiness, The Sabbath, and Faith and Obedience, 
enforced by terrible retribution. 

SACEIFICES. 

The heart grows sick as it reads Leviticus — especially 
the first seventeen chapters. Blood, blood, blood — the 
burthen of the record ; blood of dove, blood of kid, blood 
of sheep, blood of bullock ; blood for priest, blood for 
prince, blood for peasant; blood for sin, blood for 
uncleanness, blood for leprosy — blood, blood, blood for 
everything. The spirit grows faint and is cast down. 
It asks : How can all this blood of burnt offering, and 
sin offering, and trespass offering and of all such offer- 
ings be a u sweet savor unto the Lord?" Let us note 
some points, and get cheer and comfort. 
132 



SALIENT POINTS OF MOSAIC ECONOMY. 133 

1. In Lev. xvii. blood is declared the life. Hence 
man is not to take blood ; because blood or life is 
devoted to God's altar, to make atonement for sin, which 
is death. 

2. Everywhere we read, therefore, that "atonement" 
is made by priest in this blood of sacrifice, and sin is 
forgiven. 

3. The idea is conveyed more clearly by the hand 
being put on the head of the victim, laying the sin of 
the sinner upon it, and then slaying it, and sending off 
free another animal into the wilderness. 

4. This is declared a memorial " before the Lord." 
Memorial of what? Does it not bring to mind the 
lamb slain before the foundation of the world, because of 
which the sinner, man, is saved ? 

5. And memorial to us of the Lamb of Calvary, whose 
blood cleanseth from all guilt. That blood, how precious, 
how powerful, how plenteous! All this deluge of blood 
of the Jewish ritual is not too much to represent this 
blood — our only hope, our very holiness. The blood of 
lambs and goats was applied, in that day, to all persons 
and things that were holy unto the Lord ; because this 
consecration can be secured alone now and ever by appli- 
cation of the blood of God's lamb. 

6. The blood makes us not sick now. It is a gracious 
memorial — it is the world's panacea ; it fills us with 
joy unspeakable. In all this blood we see most con- 
spicuously "the Carpenter's Son," of whom it is 
written — "Christ died for the ungodly." We rejoice, 
because there is no remission without shedding of blood. 



134 the carpenter's son. 

Eemember the blood of beasts and birds did not take 
away sin. 

Not all the blood of beasts, 

On- Jewish altars slain, 
Could give the guilty conscience peace, 

Or wash away the stain. 
But Christ, the heavenly Lamb, 

Takes all our sins away ; 
A sacrifice of nobler name, 

And richer blood than they. 

HOLINESS. 

No one can read chapters xviii. to xxii. of Leviticus, 
with a prayerful heart and spiritual mind, without 
being deeply affected. The intense earnestness of the 
Lord for the perfect holiness of Israel, people as well 
as priest, stands out in every passage. The constant 
refrain is, I am the Lokd. The iteration and reiter- 
ation of this declaration gives awfulness to the com- 
mands and the prohibitions. This even is emphasized 
in this book by the downright command, " Be ye holy ; 
for I am holy." The holy God bringing man up to 
himself as a standard of life and character is a thing 
awfully solemn. The non-approach to Sinai, because 
of God's presence, except to Moses and a few, impressed 
the fearful holiness of the Lord God ; and now making 
himself the standard of man's moral and spiritual self, 
might well overwhelm the soul of spiritual insight, 
reverence for the Most High, and longing for the per- 
fection of his regenerated nature. This is the end of 
the divine desire toward his people — their complete 



SALIENT POINTS OF MOSAIC ECONOMY. 135 

holiness and consecration. "The will of God is our 
sanctification." The work of faith and sacrifice is to 
secure this great finality — conformity to the image of 
the Son of God, to which the children of Abraham are 
predestined. In a survey of the several economies of 
God, as discovered in his word, the Mind of Jehovah, 
on this momentous subject, seems thus : 

1st. To require the most exhaustive outward clean- 
ness and consecration ; and then, 

2d. To demand the inward and the real holiness of 
which this outward cleanness and perfectness is the 
proper representation, if not symbol. 

I. The first requirements we see under the Mosaic 
dispensation. There was required the most exacting 
scrupulosity as to cleanness and completeness as regards 
the person, and services, and circumstances, that it is 
possible to conceive, in connection with God's worship, 
and in the people of the Lord God. How many things 
defile; how much washing must be done; how many 
things disqualify from service at the altar; how careful 
the social relations to be; how terrible the penalties 
of violation; how suggestive that because the nations 
observe not these things they are spewed out of their 
lands ! And especially the priests — their persons, their 
garments, their services — how clean, how holy, how con- 
secrated ! The Lord seems to exhaust his resources in the 
deep impression he makes of this necessity for his service. 

II. And did not the mind and heart that cheerfully 
and joyfully and reverently complied with these positive 



136 the carpenter's son. 

exactions indicate that faith and love and spirit of obe- 
dience which is the essence of the state required now for 
the perfect service of the Lord ? In a somewhat dif- 
ferent way, Israel of old exhibited their mind to the 
Lord ; but so far as they conformed in spirit to these 
laws, moral and ceremonial and social and political, they 
indicated the essence of the heart that would be right 
toward God in our day. In our dispensation, the faith 
of the ancients is recorded, by many examples of it, to 
stimulate the faith of the Church. The faith of the 
harlot Eahab might, under the circumstances of our 
day, have made her a burning and shining light in the 
courts of our God. 

III. At any rate, the spiritual exactions now are as 
extreme as the ceremonial and social were, in the former 
dispensation. In the gospel economy there are no " mol- 
ten sea," no (< lavers," no ten thousand requirements as 
to the kind, and degree, and time of offering; no severe 
prohibition of this and that and the other thing ; the 
lame, and blind, and deformed are not excluded from 
official service of God's house. But, the simple com- 
mand : "Be ye perfect as your Father, which is in heaven, 
is perfect/' covers infinitely more than all these Mosaic 
laws as to personal cleanness, sincerity, holiness and 
consecration. Every requirement of the ceremonial law 
might be scrupulously performed, and the performer not 
be fit for a doorkeeper in the house of the Lord. The 
plowshare of the gospel must turn up the subsoil of the 
soul and the imperishable seed of God imbedded so as 
to bring forth the fruits of personal and ecclesiastical 



SALIENT POINTS OF MOSAIC ECONOMY. 137 

godliness to find acceptance and favor and blessing in the 
sight of the Lord. As to sacrifice, blood, blood, blood 
was the cry in ancient Israel ; but, the blood of the gos- 
pel is infinitely more— the sacrifice inestimably greater. 
So as to holiness, the holiness of Israel of old was only 
the shadow of the holiness God demands now in his 
people. And the extreme ceremonial holiness of the priest 
is but an adumbration of the holiness demanded now 
of the least servant of the Most High as the holiness 
and work of the High Priest were only a picture of the 
holiness and sacred office of our Great High Priest who 
stands within the Holy of Holies of the heavenly Taber- 
nacle. Read Leviticus and then the gospels ; read the 
chapters from the 18th to the 22d, and then read the 
Sermon on the Mount. Thus may we be prostrated at 
the glory of our atoning Lord and the spiritual complete- 
ness required of the believer, on whose whole being 
should be inscribed, Holiness to the Lord. 

THE SABBATH. 

No service is so emphasized in the moral and ceremonial 
law as the Sabbath. Its binding obligation is repeated, 
again and again and again. Its observance is clearly at 
the foundation of all perpetual religion. Remove this 
periodic service and convocation, and Israel goes back 
to paganism. Hence it is enforced by the most power- 
ful considerations. And in view of the ultimate use of 
the Sabbath as commemorative of the foundation truth 
of the gospel, there is additional reason for its most strin- 
gent enforcement, A grand tribute to the Sabbath is 



138 the carpenter's son. 

made in the chapters of Leviticus from the 23d to the 
28th. The great feast to be celebrated, the Passover, 
and feasts of harvests and Tabernacles, all involve the 
Sabbath and are reckoned by Sabbaths. They are called 
also " Convocations." These meetings for service to God 
make progress in the Lord's house. Now, they become 
frequent and permanently established, and are connected 
with the Sabbath. Thus they foreshadow the gospel 
economy. The more so, inasmuch as the offerings made 
to the Lord at these feasts must be sanctified by sacrifice. 
Here the blood again, just as all service now, is only 
acceptable through the merits of the crucified Jesus. But, 
the grandest and yet most awful testimony to the holi- 
ness with which the Lord regards the Sabbath, are the 
words he uses in connection with the most frightful pun- 
ishment of his people — even the scattering and peeling 
them among the nations and the desolation of their lands. 
Then, he says, when the land is desolate and the people 
are dispersed, my Sabbaths shall be kept, for there will 
be none to desecrate it ! Then will there be rest, because 
there shall be none to labor. There is an appalling satire 
in these words in Leviticus, 26th chapter, which should 
make an indelible impression as to God's sacred regard 
of that day. And the idea grows still more fearfully 
impressive, when the Lord Jehovah intimates that his 
Sabbaths being thus kept by the destruction of his peo- 
ple, he will remember his covenant with Abraham, and 
Isaac and Jacob, and have mercy on the remnant. In 
all sacred history, we recall no more awfully sublime 
vindication of a divine statute than this tribute to the 



SALIENT POINTS OF MOSAIC ECONOMY. 139 

Sabbath. And does not human experience attest that 
God is not less jealous of his day now than then ? How 
many can attest this truth : 

The Sabbath well spent 
Brings a week of content, 

And strength for the toils of to-morrow. 
The Sabbath profaned, 
Whatever be gained, 

Is a sure forerunner of sorrow. 

FAITH, OBEDIENCE, KETBIBUTION. 

The faith God requires is not half trust in him and 
half in ourselves or others. Like love, it is to be with 
all the mind and heart and strength. And in the en- 
forcement of this vital law for man's restoration and his 
glory, God is no respecter of persons. Moses and 
Aaron were devoted servants. Again and again Moses 
cast himself on his face before the Lord for his people, 
and was the meekest of men, but he smote the rock at 
Meribah instead of speaking to it, with Aaron at his 
side ; and God makes Moses strip off Aaron's priestly 
garment and give it to another, that Aaron might die 
in Mt. Hor, as he himself was to die in Nebo. Neither 
can enter the land of promise because of the act at Meri- 
bah. The sons of Aaron were consumed because they 
burnt strange fire. Korah, his grandson, with his con- 
federates who would be priests and princes, is swallowed 
up by the earth. Uzzah is slain in a subsequent period, 
because he would steady the tilting Ark. And the 
whole of the Israelites, except Joshua and Caleb, who 



140 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

did " the whole will of God/' perish in the wilderness, 
though the Covenant with their fathers was kept by 
Jehovah. All this was to impress on the universe the 
absolute necessity of implicit obedience and unwavering 
faith. And how fearful the retribution for the sins of 
the nations! They are to be utterly exterminated — men, 
women and children, See the thirty-two thousand cap- 
tive Midianite women slaughtered by order of Moses, 
because of the device, through them, of Balaam, to de- 
stroy the integrity, as they did, of the men of Israel. Oh, 
why, why? God is a glorious and gracious God. But 
his creatures who are to live forever must be taught the 
awful sinfulness of sin. Thus a few generations are sac- 
rificed for the eternal good. Thus, too, the sacrifice of 
his Son may be better appreciated — the sin he bore and 
the sin from which the believer is relieved. In a grace- 
view God is love ; in a sin-view " a consuming fire." 
How humbled should the soul be before him ! And let 
not the believer boast that what he does has for it "Thus 
saith the Lord ;" but rejoice that he does the Thus 
saith the Lord. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 

J will give unto thee, and to thy seed after thee . . . all the land of 
Canaan, for an everlasting possession, — Gen. xvii. 8. 

THE conditions under which Israel entered Canaan, to 
possess it as their country and home, were very favor- 
able to success. In the first place, God had resolved to 
drive out the peoples occupying the land because of their 
wickedness. Their cup of iniquity was full, and God 
had determined to destroy them. Hence the Lord told 
Israel that it was not because of their righteousness that 
these peoples should be dispossessed, but because of the ' 
iniquity of these heathen. But, they should not be 
driven out "in one year," said the Lord, "but little and 
little," until Israel should have full possession. And a 
goodly land was it that they were to possess, " Not as the 
land of Egypt," said Moses, "whence ye came out, 
where thou sowedst thy seed and wateredst it with thy 
foot, as a garden of herbs : But, the land whither ye go 
to possess it is a land of hills and valleys, and drinking 
water of the rain of heaven : A land which the Lord 
thy God careth for ; the eyes of the Lord thy God are 
always upon it, from the beginning of the year even 
unto the end of the year." And may it not be that 
other goodly lands are possessed by new races, not be- 

141 



142 the carpenter's son. 

cause they are righteous, but because the native inhabit- 
ants were wicked in the eyes of the Lord ? 

Besides this, Israel was a different people when they 
entered Canaan from what they were when they came 
out of Egypt, an unorganized mass of suddenly lib- 
erated slaves. They had been brought under govern- 
ment, civil and religious, having rulers and judges over, 
tens and hundreds and thousands. They had been 
taught the most comprehensive principles of ethical 
and religious truth, and had been given laws to regulate 
every duty to God and every obligation to man. They 
had been disciplined by varied and severe experience. 
They had learned that man does not "live by bread 
alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth 
of God." While they trusted the Lord God, "he bore 
them as a father beareth his son," showing himself mer- 
ciful and gracious; but, when they turned from him he 
was revealed as a consuming fire. Moses prevailed 
against Amalek while his heavy hands were stretched out. 
And when he dishonored God by a hasty word he was 
doomed not to enter the promised land. Yet the people 
were assured that they should enter in because of the 
promise to Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. Neverthe- 
less, none of the generation that came out of Egypt en- 
tered Canaan, save Joshua and Caleb. 

In addition to this, just before they crossed the Jor- 
dan, Moses, reviewing for them the forty years in the 
wilderness, presented to them, in a powerful manner, all 
their duties and the most cogent considerations for per- 
forming them. He gives the obligations of the rulers 



SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 143 

and the judges; and the obligations of the people, in 
the family, in the farm, in the mart, in the time of 
peace and in the time of war — obligations to the fellow- 
citizen and the stranger ; to the freeman and the slave. 
Nor is there any circumstance or condition of life to 
which he does not apply the far-reaching principles and 
precepts of the divine law. All religious observances 
are detailed and enforced, especially the several great 
feasts which bring the people together in their joys and 
sadness before the Lord; and most specially the feast of 
the Passover, which he associates with the keeping of 
the Sabbath. In repeating the Ten Commandments, he 
adds to the fourth these words : " And remember that thou 
wast a servant in the land of Egypt and that the Lord 
thy God brought thee out thence through a mighty hand 
and by a stretched out arm : therefore the Lord thy God 
commanded thee to keep the Sabbath day." Again and 
again he begs them to "take heed" to themselves — not 
to forget that God humbled them in the wilderness that 
they might know themselves ; and that he had been on 
his face twice for forty days and forty nights before the 
Lord because of their sins ; to take heed to make no 
graven image of God, because they saw no "similitude" 
of Jehovah in the Mount; and to be faithful in all 
their worship, when God should choose a place for his 
name in the promised land. And, in order to make the 
deepest impression upon them, he not only composes a 
song, reminding them of their duties and their dangers, 
but he arranges a list of blessings and a list of curses, 
which are to be read to the congregated people alter- 



144 the carpenter's son. 

nately from the sides of two opposing hills — showing 
the abundant favors they would receive, if faithful to 
the Lord God, and the terrible blastings that would come 
upon them should they fall into the way of the heathen 
and forget the living and true God. 

But this was not all. The hosts were to be led into 
this land by the valiant and experienced General 
Joshua, who had no fear of man, but feared the living 
God and had implicit faith in the God of Abraham, 
and Isaac, and Jacob, who promised Canaan to the 
children of Israel. It is written of him, in the wilder- 
ness : " Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed 
not out of the Tabernacle." 

And yet further, they were to be preceded by the 
Ark of the Covenant, wherein were the rod of God by 
which the great miracles had been wrought, a pot of the 
manna by which their lives had been sustained for four 
decades of years, and the roll of God's word prepared 
by the inspired pen of Moses. On that ark was to rest 
hereafter the symbol of the Lord God, as ever present 
with them. 

But, lastly, this Lord God was present then in per- 
son. He had promised to go before them and "to fight 
for them." In his song, Moses calls him their Rock, 
which Paul interpreted as Christ. Referring to the 
past defeat of their enemies the man of God sings : 
" How should one chase a thousand and two put ten 
thousand to flight except their Rock had sold them, and 
the Lord had shut them up ? For their Rock is not as 
our Rock, even our enemies themselves being judges." 



SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 145 

He is the great Motive that the Man of God puts be- 
fore them as his dying appeal, saying "that thou 
mayest fear this glorious and fearful name, The Lord 
Thy God !" 

And may it not be that all the varied education, and 
experience, and discipline that God's people are now 
undergoing, and all the changes going on among the 
nations, and all the leadings of the faithful by the 
Providence of God are but conditions favorable for the 
hosts of Zion to go forth and possess the world prom- 
ised as an inheritance, in the name and by the fear of 
that name, fearful and glorious, the Lord our God ? 

In considering the actual settlement in Canaan by 
Israel, attention will be given mainly to the personal 
revelations to his people of the Lord God, who is 
Jehovah Jesus, and the common interest of the varied 
tribes in the worship of the same God, and in the same 
place, which is the most direct work of building the 
Lord's house, going up then as now under the superin- 
tendence of the Carpenter's Son. 

IN THE DAYS OF JOSHUA. 

The most signal personal appearance of the Lord, in 
those days, was before the City of Jericho. The in- 
spired account is in these words : " And it came to pass 
when Joshua was by Jericho, that he lifted up his eyes 
and looked, and behold, there stood a man over against 
him with his sword drawn in his hand ; and Joshua 
went unto him, and said unto him, Art thou for us or 
for our adversaries ? And he said, Nay ; but as Cap- 
10 



146 the carpenter's son. 

tain of the host of the Lord am I now come. And 
Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship, 
and said unto him, What saith my lord unto his ser- 
vant ? And the Captain of the Lord's host said unto 
Joshua, Loose thy shoe from off thy foot ; for the place 
whereon thou standest is holy. And Joshua did so." 
This is exactly the direction that the Lord God, who 
appeared to Moses in Midian, said to that leader of 
Israel : and this was the same Lord God who appears 
to Joshua as " the Captain of the Lord's host." It was 
he, therefore, that commanded the armies of Israel and 
gave them all of their marvellous success; for he had 
promised to go before them and to fight for them. It 
was this same Jehovah Jesus that, on the eastern bank 
of the Jordan, said to Joshua : " Now therefore arise, 
go over this Jordan, thou and all this people; . . . every 
place that the sole of your foot shall tread upon, that 
have I given unto you. . . . Only be strong and very 
courageous, that thou mayest observe to do according to 
all the law which Moses my servant commanded thee. 
. . . Thou shalt meditate therein day and night; . . . 
then thou shalt have good success." It was he that 
went forward with the Ark of the Covenant which pre- 
ceded the army of Israel in the dried-up Jordan, and 
which followed the trumpeting priests around the walls 
of Jericho, which fell flat ; for it is written : " The 
seven priests bearing the seven horns passed on before 
the Lord, . . . and the ark of the covenant of the Lord 
followed them." It was he that ordered the circum- 
cision and the sanctifying of the people and the cele- 



SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 147 

bration of the Passover, and who, as it is said, " mag- 
nified Joshua in the sight of all Israel ; and they feared 
him as they feared Moses all the days of his life." It 
was he who destroyed, by the hand of Joshua, the ar- 
mies and cities and power of thirty-one kings, on the 
western side of the Jordan, as he had destroyed, by the 
hand of Moses, on the eastern side, Sihon, king of the 
Amorites, and Og, king of Bash an. It was he that 
" took the whole land, . . . and gave it for an inherit- 
ance unto Israel according to their divisions by the 
tribes. And the land rested from war." 

But of this personal presence of Jehovah, several 
remarks may be made : 

1. It was not vouchsafed, with such glorious results, 
except on the condition of implicit obedience. When 
Achan violated the command that " all the silver and 
gold and vessels of brass and iron shall be consecrated 
unto the Lord," the Captain of the host forsook Israel, 
and they were disgracefully defeated by the inhabitants 
of Ai. And in order to enforce obedience essential to 
his presence, Achan and all his family were mercilessly 
stoned, and, with all his property, consumed by fire. 
The reason assigned for the great success of Joshua is 
that " he left nothing undone of all that the Lord com- 
manded Moses." 

2. This personal presence of Jehovah did not take 
the place of providence and good generalship on the 
part of Joshua. After the destruction of Achan, and 
t( the Lord turned from the fierceness of his anger," the 
Captain of the host ordered Joshua to go up against 



148 the carpenter's son. 

Ai, and he went up, not with three thousand men, but 
with u 30,000 ;" and he "lay in ambush behind the 
city," and utterly destroyed it and all the inhabitants 
thereof, "both men and women, 12,000," and made it 
" a heap forever, even a desolation unto this day." 

3. And this presence was for the utter destruction of 
these people of Canaan, whose cup of iniquity seemed 
full. He cursed the man that should ever re-build Jeri- 
cho; his usual order was that in the destruction of 
these people " nothing should be left that has breath." 
Their utter extermination was required. Though mer- 
ciful and gracious to his friends, to his adversaries he 
is, indeed, a " consuming fire." 

4. And does not this personal presence indicate the 
great care the Lord has over his people whom he would 
have settled in this land of promise u decently and in 
order," and according to his promise to Abraham, Isaac, 
and Jacob ? 

(1) The bones of the noble Joseph are not lost, but 
are safely deposited in the sepulchre of his father. 

(2) The inheritance of his children is given to them 
before the lots are cast, as was the inheritance of the 
elect Judah, whose portion is said to have been " too 
much." 

(3) The lots cast were no doubt directed by the Lord, 
and thus the whole land was rightly and wisely divided 
out among the children of Israel. 

And most significant is it that these children of Israel 
elected as builders of the Lord's house among the nations, 
should, despite their bloody wars, have their minds 



SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 149 

and hearts so fixed upon this work of giving honor to 
the Lord. 

1. They erect a memorial of the miraculous passage 
of Jordan at Gilgal. 

2. At Mount Ebal they build an Altar to the Lord 
and inscribed it with the Decalogue received on Mount 
Sinai : and from Ebal and Gerizim, the blessings and 
cursings of God, commanded by Moses, are read in the 
presence of the host and people. 

3. To the Levites whose inheritance was " the sacrifices 
of the Lord God of Israel made by fire " the tribes give 
out of their portions " forty and eight cities with their 
suburbs." 

4. Shiloh is established as the seat of the ark, and the 
altar, and the tabernacle, and the divine presence, and 
congregated worship of the Lord God ; and most zealous 
are the tribes for the honor of their God. When 
Reuben, Gad, and the half tribe of Manasseh, after be- 
ing exhorted by Joshua " to take diligent heed to do the 
commandment and the law ... to love the Lord 
your God and to walk in all his ways . . . and to 
serve him with all your heart and with all your soul," 
went away to enter into their possession, on the other 
side of the Jordan, and there built " a great altar," after 
the pattern of the one at Shiloh, all the other tribes 
rose in arms against them, and fearful fratricidal war 
would have ensued, had not these tribes protested before 
God, in the most solemn manner, that the altar was not 
for sacrifice but to instruct their children with regard to 
the altar and tabernacle of their Lord God at Shiloh. 



150 

" And the thing pleased the children of Israel : and the 
children of Israel blessed God, and did not incline to go 
up against them in battle to destroy the land wherein 
the children of Reuben and Gad dwelt. And the 
children of Reuben and the children of Gad called the 
altar Ed : for it shall be a witness between us that the 
Lord is God." 

5. So careful are they of the divine honor that, Ra- 
hab and her house are saved because she hid the spies, 
believing that the Lord would give her land to Israel ; 
the Gibeonites were not only spared from the common 
destruction, because Israel, though deceived by them, 
had sworn peace unto them, but Israel went up against 
their enemies ; for the slaughter of whom Joshua com- 
manded the Sun to stop upon Gibeon and the moon in 
the valley of Ajalon. " And there was no day like 
that day before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened 
unto the voice of a man; for the Lord fought for Is- 
rael." Special mention is made of the burial of Elea- 
zar, for he was " the son of Aaron," the priest. And 
special inheritances are given to Caleb and Joshua, be- 
cause of their peculiar fidelity to the Lord — having 

" WHOLLY FOLLOWED THE LORD OUR GOD." 

6. And when Joshua, Moses-like, made his farewell 
address to the people, the burden of it was that they 
should be faithful to the Lord God. He tempted them, 
saying, " Ye cannot serve the Lord ; for he is a holy 
God." But, they protested, " Nay, but we will serve the 
Lord." With sad remembrance of the fate of the hun- 
dreds of thousands who fell in the wilderness because 



SETTLEMENT IN CANAAN. 151 

of their unbelief, Joshua warns them, " If ye for- 
sake the Lord, and serve strange gods, then he will 
turn and do you hurt and consume you after he hath 
done you good ; " but they vowed u the Lord our God 
will we serve, and his voice will we obey." "So Joshua 
made a covenant w T ith the people that day, and set them 
a statute and an ordinance in Shechem . . And 
Israel served the Lord all the days of Joshua and all 
the days of the elders that outlived Joshua, and which 
had known all the works of the Lord that he had done 
for Israel." 

But, Israel is not so careful of the honor and glory 
of the Lord God as he himself is. Not only was this 
settlement of Israel in Canaan for the building of the 
house of the Lord, but the terrific destruction of these 
peoples inhabiting the land, was for the glory of his 
name. These passages are worthy of note : " For it 
was of the Lord to harden their hearts that they 
should come against Israel in battle that he might de- 
stroy them utterly, and that they might have no favor, 
but that he might destroy them as the Lord commanded 
Moses, .... that all the people might know the 
hand of the Lord that it is mighty ; that ye might fear 
the Lord your God forever." 

And from these facts, may not the people of God, in 
our day, seeking the possession of the world in the name 
of the Lord and for the building of his house, learn some 
valuable and essential lessons, with regard to the presence 
of the Carpenter's Son, who said : " And lo ! I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen." 



CHAPTEE XVIII. 

IN THE DAYS OF THE JUDGES. 

And when the Lord raised them up judges, then the Lord vjas with 
the judge. — Judges xi. 18. 

IN" the days of Joshua the Lord God did not drive 
out all the inhabitants from the land of Canaan, 
though the whole land was divided out among the 
tribes of Israel. The destruction had been immense, 
but many of these heathen were left designedly in the 
land, as the Lord declared, "to prove" Israel; and, if 
they proved unworthy, to be "thorns and snares" unto 
them. After the death of Joshua the children of 
Israel cried unto the Lord because of the Canaanites, 
and the Lord God appeared unto the elect Judah and 
bade his tribe to go up against the adversary, and 
with the assistance of Simeon they went up, and Jeru- 
salem was taken and ten thousand of the Canaanites 
and Perizzites were put to the sword. And fearful retri- 
bution was visited upon Adonibezek, "the lord of 
lightning," — under whose table seventy kings with 
thumbs and great toes cut off had "gathered their 
meat," — by cutting off his thumbs and great toes; so 
that he said, "as I have done, so God hath requited 
me." And now it is significantly written, "And the 
Lord was with Judah, and he drave out the inhabitants 
of the mountain ; but could not drive out the inhabi- 
152 



IN THE DAYS OF THE JUDGES. 153 

tants of the valley, because they had chariots of iron." 
Could not the Lord God overthrow chariots of iron ? 
Here comes in a sad story. All the days of Joshua, 
and of the elders of his day, the people served the 
Lord, and he, according to promise, was with them for 
the upbuilding of his house and worship of truth. But, 
alas, the Lord God after that forsakes them, according 
to his word, for " there arose another generation after " 
the generation of Joshua's time had been gathered to 
their fathers, "which knew not the Lord, nor yet the 
works which he had done in Israel." And what was 
the cause of this ? Read : " The children of Israel 
dwelt among the Canaanites, Hittites, and Amorites 
and Perizzites, and Hivites and Jebusites: and they 
took their daughters to be their wives, and gave their 
daughters to their sons, and served their gods. And 
the children of Israel did evil in the sight of the Lord, 
and forgat the Lord their God, and served Baalim and 
the groves." And the consequence has been anticipated. 
According to the warnings of Joshua and Moses, and 
the repeated declarations of Jehovah, he forsook them. 
He forsook them when they ceased to build his house, 
and began to build the house of Baalim, whose altars 
and groves they had been straitly ordered to overthrow 
and destroy, with the wicked worshippers themselves. 
When Moses came down from Sinai and saw the 
idolatry of the people, he stood by the tabernacle and 
cried : " Who is on the Lord's side? let him come unto 
me;" and then he put the idolaters to the sword. 
Thus he emphasized the Lord's hatred of such wicked- 



154 the carpenter's son. 

ness. And Joshua also said, before he died : " Choose 
you this day whom ye will serve. As for me and my 
house, we will serve the Lord." And the people cried 
out, " God forbid that we should forsake the Lord to 
serve other gods ! " And yet, here they are at the feet 
of Baal ! And terrible judgment came: they are sub- 
jected at one time eight years to the king of Mesopo- 
tamia ; at another, eighteen years to the king of Moab ; 
and, again, twenty years to Jabin, king of the Canaan- 
ites, besides long periods to the Philistines. But the 
people repented of their folly, and in their agonies 
cried unto the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, 
and he remembered his covenant with the fathers. 
" And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Othniel," and 
he prevailed against Chushan-rishathaim, " and the land 
had rest for forty years." And the Lord raised up Ehud, 
who assassinated the fat Eglon, while saying to him, "I 
have a message from God unto thee," and overthrew 
Moab ; " and the land had rest for eighteen years." 
Then arose the prophetess Deborah, before whom the 
Lord went; and the bold Jael, Heber's wife. By the 
wisdom of the one and the nail and hammer of the 
other, Sisera and his host came to naught: the history of 
which is graphically sung in "The Song of Deborah and 
Barak." Then had the land rest for forty years. 

But, alas, alas, Israel proved themselves "the stiff- 
necked " people that the Lord told them they were, and 
soon "the Midianites and Amorites and children of the 
east" overspread the land "as grasshoppers for multi- 
tude," so that there was " left no sustenance for Israel, 



IN THE DAYS OF THE JUDGES. 155 

neither sheep, nor ox, nor ass." Fearful was their plight 
as they were driven from their fields and houses into 
"caves and dens and strongholds" in the mountains, 
because of the Midianites. But, the Lord God is to be 
entreated by the children of men, and marvellous is 
his patience and grace. Herein is he identified per- 
fectly with the Carpenter's Son of Nazareth. Such 
endurance, such mercy, such loving-kindness, could only 
exist in one — the infinitely good, the Lord God of 
Israel. And, in response to the agonies of his again 
repentant people, he comes down and sits under an oak 
in Ophrah and has a marvellous interview with Gideon, 
the son of Joash the Abi-ezrite. Gideon looked like 
"the son of a king," and was "a mighty man of 
valor;" but, he was more than that; he was a humble 
man and a man of mighty faith. His interview with 
Jehovah reminds us of the interviews with him of 
Abraham and Joshua. Three great miracles he extorts 
from the Almighty in attestation of his being the God 
of liis fathers. Then he begins the work on the Lord's 
house, overthrowing the altar of Baal and destroying his 
groves; erects an altar to the living and true God; goes 
forth with three hundred men and slaughters one hun- 
dred and twenty thousand warriors, slaying their kings 
with his own hand ; and then, to the demand of Israel, 
" Rule thou over us, both thou and thy son, and thy 
son's son also," he grandly replies, "I will not rule over 
you, neither shall my son rule over you : The Lord 
shall rule OYER you." Thus was Midian subdued, 
"and the country was in quietness forty years in the 
days of Gideon." 



156 the cabpenteb's son. 

But time goes on and again we read : li And it came 
to pass as soon as Gideon was dead that the children of 
Israel turned again and went a whoring after Baalim 
and Baal-berith their god." This opens up a view of 
the sad state of fallen human nature that makes us 
smite upon our breast, pity our fellow men, bewail the 
nations of the earth, and justify God in all his judgments 
among the children of men. Now the presence and 
mercy of the Lord seem clean gone forever. The Phil- 
istines come down and oppress them, and they cry again 
to the Lord, but he responds, "Go and cry unto the 
gods which ye have chosen : let them deliver you in the 
time of your tribulation." And fearful beyond descrip- 
tion was the state of things, with occasional reliefs from 
the face and hand of Jehovah, from the days of Gideon 
to the days of Samuel, the judge and prophet and man 
of God. Of some of the judges it is only written that 
they had so many sons who rode on so many " ass 
colts;" and the dismal record appears, here and there, 
" In those days there was no king in Israel : every man 
did that which was right in his own eyes." But, what 
was lt right in his own eyes," was for the most part 
fearfully wrong in the eyes of God. Gideon's son, 
Abimelech, slaughters the whole of his father's house 
(save one), " threescore and ten persons on one stone ; " 
and has his own skull righteously crushed by a piece 
of millstone from the hand of a woman in the tower 
of Thebez; and was worthily sung by his brother 
Jotham's parable of the Bramble. This was the 
beginning of a period of darkness and horror which 



IN THE DAYS OF THE JUDGES. 157 

was marked by the chapter of Benjamin's appalling 
deed, that made even the God-forsaken brother tribes to 
rise up and put to death twenty-five thousand of their 
name, which virtually wiped out the tribe of Benjamin 
from the tribes of the children of Israel. Yet the Lord 
God was not without witnesses even in this dark age. He 
appeared unto Jephthah, — though he reflected his times 
by his reckless and fatal vow, — who discussed bravely the 
rights of Israel's possessions with the king of Amnion 
and then put his hosts to the sword for troubling the 
Lord's people. The Almighty rixrwv talked face to face 
with Manoah and his wife, giving them a marvellous sign 
of the presence of the Lord God ; and his Spirit came 
mightily upon their mighty son, who avenged his people's 
wrongs upon the Philistines, while enveloping himself in 
darkness and ruin. But no picture of the times, with 
regard to the damage to the Lord's hou§e, is darker than 
the one of which an insight is obtained by "the ephod, 
and teraphim, and graven and molten images " of the 
house of Micah in Mount Ephraim, and his Levite priest^ 
because of which he said, "Now know I that the Lord 
will do me good ; " by the stealing of all of them by 
the children of Dan, that they might be unto them in 
the place of Shiloh and the Lord God ; by the elders of 
the congregation of Israel inducing men of Benjamin 
to capture for wives the girls dancing at the yearly feast 
of the Lord at Shiloh ; and especially by the awful cor- 
ruption in the family of the aged priest Eli, which 
ended in the ark being taken by impious hands from 
Shiloh and captured by the Philistines, while the sons 



158 the carpenter's son. 

of the old man, who carried it forth, are slain, the old 
man's neck is broken and thirty thousand of Israel are 
slain. " Ichabod " is the name given to Eli's grandson, 
which means, " The glory of tke Lord is departed." 
The Ark of the Covenant is carried about by horrid, 
uncircumcised enemies, inflicting destruction on them 
and on their God, and is then driven out of their 
land in an unguided ox cart, to rest on the road 
not less than twenty years from the house of the 
Lord. Alas, for Israel ! They were indeed a God- 
forsaken people ; and the Lord's spiritual house was 
well nigh in ruins. 

But a gleam of hope for the Lord's house comes 
from that gem of Israel's history, Ruth, as we see her 
clinging to Naomi in Moab, and coming to Bethlehem 
of Judah, saying: "Thy people shall be my people and 
thy God my God ;" when we hear Boaz saluting his 
reapers, "The Lord be with you," and them returning 
the salutation, "The Lord bless thee;" when we listen 
to the olden time words of the people that are in the 
gate and the elders, " We are witnesses. The Lord 
make the woman that is come into thine house like 
Rachel and like Leah, which two did build the house of 
Israel; and do thou worthily in Ephratah, and be 
famous in Bethlehem; And let thy house be like the 
house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah, of the 
seed which the Lord shall give thee of this young 
woman;" and when, finally we read, "There is a son 
born to Naomi ; and the^y called his name Obed ; he is 
the father of Jesse, the father of David." 



IN THE DAYS OF THE JUDGES. 159 

And we get into the dawning light when we come 
to the last and noblest of Israel's judges, the godly 
Samuel. He was a child of prayer, and the child of 
godly parents, whom the Lord God directly visited, and 
unto whom the child was vowed, and was given for life, 
as a servant of the Lord's house so soon as he was 
" weaned." To Samuel the Lord God appeared ; by 
him the aged Eli was w T arned and his doom announced 
because he restrained not the sacrilegious vileness of his 
sons who served the altar ; by him were the people led 
to repentance and the renewal of the worship of the 
Lord God ; by hirn did the Lord do a great wonder in 
the sight of the people and the Philistines; and by him 
"the Philistines were subdued, and they came no more 
in the coast of Israel." And all the cities which had 
been taken from Israel, "from Ekron even unto Gath," 
were recaptured, and Israel was delivered "out of the 
hands of the Philistines." And at Raman, Samuel 
"built an altar unto the Lord." Yet the people rebelled, 
and demanded a king. And the Lord God told Samuel 
that the people did not thereby reject the Lord's 
servant, but the Lord God himself whom they would 
not have to rule over them, and that he must anoint 
Saul their king. Samuel obeys the Lord, after warning 
the people of the consequence of their folly. And the 
old Judge and Prophet lives long enough to see Saul 
put sacrilegious hand on the altar at Shiloh, and to lie 
unto God in the matter of saving the best of the flocks 
and cattle of the conquered King of Amalek, whom 
also Saul saved, contrary to God's command, but whom 



160 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

Samuel, in holy wrath, hewed to pieces with his own 
b^.nd. The conduct of Saul grieved Samuel so greatly 
that he cried all night before the Lord. And before he 
was honorably gathered to his fathers, he gave these 
words of sound wisdom and of deep insight into human 
and divine nature, to the people. And Samuel said 
unto the people, "Fear not; ye have done all this 
wickedness: yet turn not aside from following the 
Lord, but serve the Lord with all your heart ; and turn 
ye not aside : for then should ye go after vain things, 
which cannot profit nor deliver; for they are vain. For 
the Lord will not forsake his people for his great 
name's sake : because it hath pleased the Lord to make 
you his people. Moreover, as for me, God forbid that 
I should sin against the Lord in ceasing to pray for 
you ; but I will teach you the good and the right way : 
only fear the Lord, and serve him in truth with all your 
heart ; for consider how great things he hath done for 
you. But, if ye shall still do wickedly, ye shall be 
consumed, both ye and your king." 

Greatly zealous w T as the old man for the honor of 
God's house; and he had the consolation of anointing 
a successor to Saul, even " a man after God's heart/' — 
the son of Jesse, — whose zeal for God's house was so 
great that he was honored by a son whose mission in life 
w r as to erect the magnificent temple at Jerusalem, in 
which city of the Lord David had brought the Ark of 
the Covenant, after its separation from the Lord's house 
for twenty years in Kirjath-jearim. 



IN THE DAYS OF THE JUDGES. 161 

KETEOSPECTIYE VIEW. 

The question arises, What progress has been made, 
up to this time, in the building of the Lord's house ? 
In answering the question, it must be borne in mind that 
the house of the Lord is spiritual, and is built by the 
establishment of truth in the minds of his intelligent 
creatures, of right principles in their hearts, of worship- 
ful conduct in their lives, and of all those ways which 
may be ultimately subordinated to the edification of the 
great spiritual structure. 

I. Among God's people it was established : 

1. That, though salvation is by grace, the presence 
and blessing of the Lord cannot be enjoyed without 
personal piety and the worship of his name where his 
name is recorded. Religion must be localized. 

2. That the possessions which may be by grace can 
only be acquired by great struggle, and retained in the 
same way. 

3. That the heart is deceitful above all things and 
desperately wicked, and cannot be trusted :. but all trust 
must be put in the Lord. 

4. That the promises of Jehovah may be relied upon, 
but there may be a presumptuous reliance which can 
have only a fatal consequence. 

5. That, though there is much evil among God's 
people, in all ages there are those who fear God and 
walk uprightly and are manifestly the heirs of eternal life. 

II. Among the nations : 

1. It was established that man is a sinner and that 
11 



162 the carpenter's son. 

the way of the transgressor is hard, because he is under 
the righteous displeasure of God. 

2. It was established that the human heart must have 
some God, though it may not find peace in any but the 
living and true God. 

3. The varied forms of worship amcng the nations 
established human nature in active service of a religious 
sort : his houses erected, his altars built, his groves 
planted for his God, showed man to be an essential 
builder; which builder naturally inclines to building 
for the Most High, and may be turned, in time, to this 
end, by the power of his might. 

4. That all his advancement in art and science and 
wealth, and all his possessions belong to the Lord, and 
may be, from time to time, turned over to the worship- 
pers of the true God, as the land of Canaan was given 
to the children of Israel. 

5. That Israel and Canaan may be a picture of the 
world's future history. 

These were some of the truths taught, up to this 
time, by the Lord God among the children of men, and 
they are vital elements in the construction of his house, 
which had thus made no little progress on the earth. 
And no truth, it may be added, was more clearly mani- 
fested both in Israel and among the nations than that 
the house of the Lord God building on earth, by his per- 
sonal presence, is obstructed, in every possible way 3 by the 
personal presence of the great destroyer of man and God's 
works, the devil, with his angels. This fact accounts 
for much we have seen in Israel and among the nations. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

IN THE DAYS OF THE KINGS. 

And the Lord said . . . they have rejected me, that I should not 
reign over them. — 1 Sam. viii. 7. 

IN these days much progress was made in the work of 
the TexTcov, or b dp^TexzcDV, by the practical illus- 
tration of great doctrines and the exemplification of 
important characters, all for the advantage of the king- 
dom of heaven. Among the doctrines illustrated were 
these : 

1. That man is not to be a law to himself. His will 
cannot be supreme. He may reject God as his ruler, as 
Israel did, but he must not rule himself. Saul was 
only a sample of the kings of the world. The people 
under them are well called subjects. And man should 
be subject to some higher power. The family organiza- 
tion is designed to teach practically this important les- 
son ; and the governments of the world, especially the 
kingdoms, teach this more fully. The nature of man is 
thus trained, even under bad government, and thus be- 
comes better fitted for the government of God. The 
essence of sin is self-will ; and the kingdoms of the 
world tend to the suppression of this essential evil of 
mankind. Hence, it is written that the Magistrate is a 
" minister of God," and does not wield the sword in 
vain. 

163 



164 the carpenter's son. 

2. Another doctrine was that whatever the conditions 
and changes among men, they are all overruled for the 
glory of God. All the courses and wars of the king- 
dom of Israel, as well as of the surrounding and the 
most distant nations, were all according to natural laws, 
and yet they were all serving the great purposes of Je- 
hovah. Even the wrath of men he makes to praise 
him and the remainder of wrath he restrains. 

3. The division of God's House under Jeroboam and 
Rehoboam was a great sin, but the establishment of two 
centres for worship illustrated w T hat the Carpenter's Son 
declared, in his day, that the worship of God, who is a 
Spirit, is not confined to any locality, but may be con- 
ducted wherever he is called upon in spirit and in truth. 
This great doctrine was also illustrated by the destruc- 
tion of Jerusalem, because of the wickedness of Kings 
and people. 

4. And the captivity itself illustrated the great doc- 
trine that God's people have important relations with 
the peoples of the world. Israel's ideas were expanded 
by his captivity in Egypt, and more so by the Babylo- 
nian captivity. And good was done to both of their 
foreign masters. Egypt learned lessons from the Lord 
God never to be forgotten ; and so did Babylon. The 
Lord God was no more signally present in the courts of 
David and Solomon than he was in the Courts of Nebu- 
chadnezzar, Belshazzar, Ahasuerus and Cyrus. Daniel 
and Ezekiel were his mouthpiece in the Captivity as 
plainly as were Elijah and Elisha in Jerusalem and 
Samaria. The Lord God was no nearer to the King of 



IN THE DAYS OF THE KINGS. 165 

Israel when he talked to him, face to face, at the thresh- 
ing-place of Araunah, the Jebusite, than he was to the 
Hebrew children in the fiery furnace, where he appeared, 
even to pagan eyes, as "the Son of God." The heads of 
these nations were " stirred up" by him, and directed 
by him, for the upbuilding of his house, just as the 
Kings of Judah and of Israel were. This fact should 
draw out the minds of God's people toward the nations, 
in more earnest consideration than they are often drawn 
out. If the heathen seem God-forsaken, it is just as 
Saul, Israel's first King, was forsaken of the Lord God. 

And important characters were exemplified under the 
Kings, for the permanent advantage of the Lord's 
house. Many of the several classes, formalists, heart- 
worshippers and practical workers, might be cited from 
the long list of Kings of Judah and Israel, but let one 
of each class suffice for the lasting consideration of God's 
people, while building the house of the Lord. The 
three first kings happen to be good exemplifications of 
these three classes. 

1. Saul was an essential formalist. There was much 
that was admirable in him. He was handsome, modest 
and seemingly reverential. The Spirit of God also 
came upon him, and in a certain sense " gave him an- 
other heart." He prophesied in the name of God, and 
" built an altar " to his name. But, whenever the test 
came, it became apparent that "the root of the matter" 
was not in him. He goes to Shiloh to counsel with God 
before going out to battle ; but, contrary to the first prin- 
ciples of God's worship, he himself serves at the altar, 



166 the cakpenter's son. 

because Samuel is not present at the expected moment. 
Amalek is accursed of God and is to be annihilated, ac- 
cording to God's word, and his substance with him ; but 
Saul not only spares Agag, but brings back the flocks 
and herds under the pretext that they are for the altar 
of the Lord God. Under the influence of the godly 
Samuel, the witch and wizard are suppressed in the 
land; but, Samuel dead, the King goes to the witch of 
Endor to bring back the old man to life ! But, the 
prophet asks, "Why consult me when forsaken of 
God?" Now left to himself, Saul is possessed of the 
evil spirit ; and the aim of his life seems to be the 
murder of David, the Lord's anointed and his own best 
friend. And despite all his pretense of serving the 
Lord, he miserably perishes by the hand of the enemy, 
according to the w T ord of Samuel and the decree of the 
Lord God. This lesson has a w T ide application, and its 
presentation in Israel's history may have influenced 
myriads to guard against the defect of this servant of 
God ; whom God made a builder of the Lord's house ; 
the exposure of his hypocrisy was an illustrious warn- 
ing to God's people. 

2. David was a character just the opposite. Like 
Saul, he had natural advantages. He was of goodly per- 
son ; he was cultured in music and poetry. He was as 
brave as a lion, being more than a match for the lion or 
the bear, and for Goliath too ! He was loving-hearted and 
most magnanimous, as witnessed by his devotion to 
Jonathan, and his repeated sparing of Saul's life. More 
than that, he even avenged Saul's death by slaying the 



IN THE DAYS OF THE KINGS. 167 

young man that ended the royal suicide's misery and 
brought his crown to David ; kept Saul's grandson at 
the King's table, and celebrated, in eloquent song, the 
Lord's fallen anointed and his far nobler son. But, this 
was not David's excellence. Saul might have been all 
that and yet might have miserably perished. The ex- 
cellence of David was that the Spirit of God was in 
his heart, and he was truly and constantly zealous for 
the Lord's glory. In all of his movements of state or 
of war, his soul seemed to look instinctively to 
the Lord, as "the man of his counsel." He takes Jeru- 
salem, and fetches the ark to u the city of the Lord," 
with such personal rejoicing that he brings upon him- 
self the contempt of his wife, the daughter of Saul. 
But, his life was to be right, not merely in the sight of 
men, as was her father's, but in the sight of God. In all 
the vast complications of his life, from the time he left 
the sheep of his father until he was gathered to his 
fathers, his walk was wise and his spirit was full of the 
fragrance of truth and justice and mercy and heaven 
— save in two fearful exceptions! But, in these crimes 
he shows himself a man of God. For numbering 
Israel, he throws himself into the arms of divine mercy, 
and, talking face to face with Jehovah about his sin, 
submits to the divine judgment and makes a sin offering 
for his guilt. About the black matter of Bathsheba, 
the best notice is the 51st Psalm, which, until the end 
of time, will be at once the best evidence of David's 
contrition, and the fittest expression of penitence that 
the sinner can ever make. That Psalm has done 



168 the carpenter's son. 

more good in building God's house than perhaps the 
same number of lines ever written by any sinner's 
pen. And the Psalms, as a collection, are the best 
history of the godly experience of this godly man, 
whom Samuel declared was " after God's own heart." 
And perhaps there never was a soul more desirous 
of showing his love and gratitude by building the 
Lord's house than David. His delight was to dwell 
in the house of the Lord; and he would erect a 
Temple for him worthy of his name. Forbidden of 
the Lord to do it in person, he makes the most munifi- 
cent provisions for his son and successor to do it. This 
was the burden of his charge to Solomon that he should 
perform faithfully this work. And if any distinction 
can be made in the songs of the " sweet singer of Israel," 
those seem the most charming that relate to the services 
of God's house, as for instance, his " psalms of degrees." 
And w T hen we think of the universal use of these songs 
among God's people of every age, the estimate of this 
one item of David's life, for the edification of the saints, 
seems altogether beyond calculation. And an appropri- 
ate finale of David's life-long sentiment, " One thing 
have I desired of the Lord, and that I will seek after. 
That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days 
of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire 
in his temple," may be found in the following passage 
taken from the latter part of his life, and showing his 
intense zeal for the Lord's house : " Then David said, 
This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar 
of the burnt offering for Israel. And David com- 



IN THE DAYS OF THE KINGS. 169 

manded to gather together the strangers that were in 
the land of Israel ; and he set masons to hew wrought 
stones to build the house of God. And David prepared 
iron in abundance for the nails for the doors of the 
gates, and for the joinings : and brass in abundance 
without weight ; also cedar trees in abundance : for the 
Zidonians and they of Tyre brought much cedar wood 
to David. And David said, Solomon my son is young 
and tender, and the house that is to be builded for 
the Lord must be exceeding magnifical of fame and 
glory throughout all countries : I will therefore now 
make preparation for it. So David prepared abun- 
dantly before his death. Then he called Solomon his son 
and charged him to build a house for the Lord God of 
Israel. And David said to Solomon* . . . Now 
my son, the Lord be with thee ; and prosper thee and 
build the house of the Lord thy God, as he hath said 
of thee. Only the Lord give thee wisdom and under- 
standing, and give thee charge concerning Israel, that 
thou mayest keep the law of the Lord thy God. . . 
Be strong and of good courage ; dread not nor be dis- 
mayed. Now, behold, in my trouble, I have prepared 
for the house of the Lord a hundred thousand talents of 
gold, and a thousand thousand talents of silver ; and of 
brass and iron without weight ; for it is in abundance : 
timber also and stone have I prepared; and thou 
mayest add thereto. Moreover, there are workmen with 
thee in abundance, hewers and workers in stone and 
timber, and all manner of cunning men for every man- 
ner of work. Of the gold and silver and the brass and the 



170 the carpenter's SON. 

iron there is no number. Arise, therefore, and be doing, 
and the Lord be with thee. David also commanded all 
the princes of Israel to help Solomon his son, saying, 
Is not the Lord your God with you ? and hath he not 
given you rest on every side ? for he hath given the in- 
habitants of the land into thine hand ; and the laud is 
subdued before the Lord, and before his people. Now 
set your heart and your soul to seek the Lord your God ; 
arise, therefore, and build ye the sanctuary of the Lord 
God, to bring the ark of the Covenant of the Lord, 
and the holy vessels of God, into the house that is to be 
built in the name of the Lord. So when David was 
old and full of days, he made Solomon his son king of 
Israel." 

3. Solomon illustrates the practical worker in the 
house of the Lord. "We need not refer to his magnif- 
icent gifts, his boundless wealth, his superlatively 
splendid surroundings, his world-wide fame that brought 
to his Court the wisest and most distinguished of the 
world. And, by the way, Solomon illustrated also that 
the greatness of wisdom and wealth is not great enough 
to keep the soul from falling into hideous sin ! " Not 
by might nor power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." 
But, for David's sake and God's covenant with him, 
Solomon would have been forsaken of God. This is the 
divine testimony. But, instead of his being the world's 
wreck of wisdom and wealth, he stands out as the church's 
inspiration to subordinate all possible means for the edifi- 
cation of God's house. We need not refer here to the 
cost, the magnificence of Solomon's Temple — "the joy 



IN THE DAYS OF THE KINGS. 171 

of the whole world." That was merely external. The 
great work that Solomon did was to crystallize into one 
grand ritual every element of true worship which had 
been developed by the Lord God from the beginning of 
the world unto his day, thus making visible and per- 
manent and representative what was taught in God's 
word and foreshadowed in the Tabernacle. Solomon 
built in stone and cedar and gold a model of the king- 
dom of God on earth and in heaven. He was God's 
agent of focalizing all the elements of the divine essence 
and purpose and practice and government among men 
into a splendid adumbration of the Lord's universal and 
everlasting kingdom of ransomed souls. How appropri- 
ate that, after its dedication/' the glory of the Lord filled 
the house." Solomon was a practical worker, while, 
as we have seen, something more than that. Would there 
were more in God's house ! But, better would it have 
been had Solomon prayed more as his father did. Let 
the two go hand in hand. Let the heart be ever near to 
God that Solomon's sin may be shunned ; and let the 
hand, with all its circumstance and possible help, be in 
the Lord's work that Solomon's work may prove itself 
a holy inspiration. 

It need not be added that the Lord God was present 
with these his servants. This is repeatedly stated. He 
sends down fire from heaven in answer to David's prayer, 
and talks with Solomon in the visions of the night. And 
how else could their great works for his house have been 
done? And all his manifestations proved him the same 
as " the Carpenter's Son." 



172 the carpenter's son. 

Other kings might be cited, both for warning and for 
inspiration — kings, as Ahab and Ahaz, who, like Saul, 
dishonored God, and kings like David, as Josiah and 
Hezekiah, that gave great honor to his name. And not 
only kings. Many holy men and women, in these days 
of the kings, worked well and marvellously under the 
inspiration of the ubiquitous Carpenter's Son. And fear- 
ful was his vengeance on his adversaries ! By the prayer 
of one man of God, one hundred and eighty-five thou- 
sand investing adversaries perish in a night. Such men 
as Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Elijah and Elisha were al- 
most impersonations — with human frailties- — of the Di- 
vine presence itself! And in the captivity, Ezekiel, and 
Daniel, and Nehemiah, and Ezra and the rest of the 
great builders of the Lord's house ! And how powerful 
was the divine presence among the heathen — avenging 
the injury of God's elect, and inspiring to the Lord's 
glory ! How plainly the Carpenter's Son was near the 
heart of the Persian monarch, who through Esther 
saves his people ; and through Nehemiah and Ezra re- 
peats the grand work that Solomon did. The reorganiza- 
tion of God's house in Jerusalem is one of the sublimest 
passages in human history. Nehemiah seems a well-nigh 
perfect son of God — a model man for all ages, and most 
distinguished for his love for, and his building of, the 
Lord's house. He stands under the old economy, as 
Paul stands under the new. Par nobile fratrum: the 
world's inspiration as builders of the house of the Lord 
God. 

And let it be added that the best exposition of the 



IN THE DAYS OF THE KINGS. 173 

house that Nehemiah and Solomon built is given to the 
Hebrews by the Apostle Paul. As Abraham's seed is 
condensed in one word, so is the Lord's house ; and that 
word is the same, " Christ/' which is identical with 
u the Carpenter's Son." 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE TEMPLE. 

WITH PEESENT LESSONS TO GOD'S PEOPLE. 

Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, anjd that the Spirit of God 
dwelleth in you? — 1 Cor. iii. 16. 

IN deriving lessons for God's people from the temple, 
it may be viewed externally and internally. 

I. Externally, as to its stability, its multitude of 
builders, its costliness, and as an object of love and 
source of influence. 

1. In comparison with the Tabernacle, the Temple 
was a structure so substantial that it might have seemed 
everlasting. Its foundations, despite the changes of 
time, stand until this day, and may stand until "the 
last day." Thus was depicted the permanence of God's 
spiritual house. It is based upon the principles of 
eternal truth, which are embedded in the mind and 
heart and conscience of God's servants, past, present 
and to come ; and their being would have to be exter- 
minated to overthrow the foundations of the Lord's 
house. Yea, it is founded on the very being of the 
everlasting God. The house of Baal, of Mahomet, of 
Buddha, of Brahma, may seem steadfast ; but, as the 
Ark of the Covenant overthrew Dagon in his house of 
worship, as the stone cut out of the mountain without 
174 



THE TEMPLE. 175 

hands overthrew the great image, so shall all the 
houses of idols and false gods be overthrown. And as 
that stone cut out of the mountain filled the whole 
earth, so shall the Lord's house be based upon the uni- 
versal acceptance of its truth and of its God ; and how 
can it be otherwise than everlasting ? 

2. The numbers engaged in the erection of the tem- 
ple were very great. Of a certain class of woTkmen — 
" hewers and burden-bearers "— it is said that their 
number was one hundred and fifty thousand, with 
thirty-six hundred overseers. How many more must 
they have been in all ? And these workmen were both 
Jews and Gentiles. It is a significant fact that David 
employed " strangers" to prepare the material in his 
day ; and Solomon, in erecting the house, calls to his 
assistance the king of a heathen nation. But what were 
these numbers to the multitudes who have been, and 
are presently, and who shall be employed on the erec- 
tion of God's house ? The number is such that " no 
man can number." The builders are of every age and 
every clime. Even the nations most remote now from 
the work shall be gathered in and become co-workers 
with the Lord in the erection of this house, for which 
all things were made. Some idea of the aggregate 
number we get at when we note the expressions of 
multitude made in the Apocalypse of John. But, 
enough ; " no man can number" them. 

3. And what of the cost of the Temple? David 
said he had laid aside for the building "over and 
above all that I have prepared for the house of the 



176 the carpenter's son. 

Lord, ... of mine own proper good three thousand tal- 
ents of gold of Ophir and seven thousand talents of 
refined silver." This, of itself, would amount to some 
$89,000,000. But that was only a part of the cost, 
which has been estimated at some four billions of our 
money! But, costly as the Temple of Solomon was, 
more costly is the spiritual house of the Lord. 

(1) To man it is to cost the wealth and knowledge 
and intellect of the race. 

(2) To nature, all its works. 

(3) To God it has already cost the life of his Son. 

4. But how loved was the Temple to the Jewish 
heart? There was the Shekinah; there, his sin-offer- 
ing ; there, his hope ; there, his all. Even the destruc- 
tion of it could not destroy his love for it and its power 
over him. In captivity he cried : " If I forget thee, O 
Jerusalem !" So the heart of God's people must be 
wrapped up in the house of the Lord. There is surely 
their all ; for there is their Saviour and their God ! 
And thus is the Lord's house to have the influence and 
power to absorb every means that can be employed in 
its erection, in the workman ; and to send him out, for 
more means, into the ends of the earth. 

II. But, internally the temple may be viewed for in- 
struction and inspiration. 

1. There was God's presence, for light and life and 
law. So is he with his house-builders now. But, was 
he with his people when the ark was with the Philis- 
tines ? When under the foot of the captor sent to pun- 



THE TEMPLE. 177 

ish Israel for abuse of law and light and life? Let 
God's people be wise and study well the conditions of 
God's presence to aid and comfort, from Israel's history 
and the word of the gospel. When does the Carpen- 
ter's Son engage to fulfill the promise : "And, lo, I am 
with you alway, even unto the end of the world?'' 

2. There is the Priesthood with all their sacred offices. 
They had to be cleansed and anointed and sanctified. 
And for whom was this a model? Is not God's people 
at large a "royal priesthood?" What did the priest 
therein figure that the believer now is not required to 
do in reality? And the believer must be washed and 
anointed and consecrated by the regenerating and sancti- 
fying power of the Holy Ghost. The Priest, without 
his preparation, was no more sacrilegious in going to the 
altar than is he who serves God without change of 
heart and life. "Holiness becometh thy house, oh Lord, 
forever.'' The command of the Carpenter's Son is : " Be 
ye perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." 

3. There w T as the High Priest and his atoning sacri- 
fice before the Mercy Seat This was annually repeated 
to show that we have perpetual need of the great aton- 
ing High Priest who has entered into the Holy of 
Holies and is making constant intercession. That inter- 
cession is sure for those whose faith is fixed on Him. 
For every duty, for every difficulty, for every trial, 
the law of success is, " looking unto Jesus." 

4. The feasts of the Temple have their obviously 
corresponding duties in the Christian life, which must 
be observed. But, above all the Passover. That was 

12 



178 the carpenter's son. 

ever most prominently impressed under the old economy. 
This we keep by having the soul devoted to the great 
Redeemer by the ordinances of God's house, which 
should be the sacred privilege as well as the joyous duty 
of the believing heart. The state of heart which re- 
joices in Christ, our passover, is at the foundation of the 
Lord's house and its prosperous upbuilding. 

5. The altar of incense suggests prayer, with which 
Solomon began to dedicate the Temple ; and Solomon's 
blessings, with which the dedication was continued, sug- 
gest the Divine blessings implied in his manifest presence; 
and the vast sacrifices, with which the dedication was 
completed, suggest the sacrifices to which God's work- 
men are called and inspired by the great sacrifice of 
God's own Son — these and other parts and performances 
of the Temple are designed to impress valuable lessons 
on the minds and hearts of God's people. 

6. But, I only refer further to the Courts of the 
Temple : 

(1) There was a Court for God's people, whose duties 
and privileges have been considered. 

(2) But, there was a Court for the Gentiles. This is 
a significant suggestion. Even exclusive Israel con- 
templated the heathen. Now the middle wall of 
partition is broken down. The world is the field for 
the gathering of material and builders for the Lord's 
house. Here is the grand obligation of the Church 
imposed by the Carpenter's Son : a Go ye into all the 
world and preach the gospel to every creature." It is 
only thus that God's promise to Abraham and Isaac 



THE TEMPLE. 179 

and Jacob and to his people of all ages can be realized, 
v'z : that in Christ all the nations of the earth shall be 
blessed. 

III. — What did the Temple represent f 

1. It represented the individual believer. Every 
part of the Temple should be in him ; for he is the 
Temple of the living God. 

2. It represented the local Church. There was 
nothing in the Temple which should not have a counter- 
part in every Church of Christ. If the individual is a 
Temple of God, much more is a Church. In fact, it is 
by these myriads of personal temples and ecclesiastic 
temples, with all their duties and privileges, that the 
great Master-builder proposes to keep before our minds 
the great building comprehending all these miniature 
temples, as in the vast Cathedral many chapels may 
be found. 

3. It represented the Church universal. There is a 
grand Church invisible, composed of the redeemed of all 
times and all climes, which have been gathering into the 
House of God since man fell and began to be redeemed. 
This House of God should inspire our individual and 
church services. The local Church is but the infant- 
school for training for the grander duties of those wider 
spheres of that family, a part of which is in heaven and a 
part on earth. 

4. And did not the Temple represent a still broader 
house of God ? Is there not to be a union of all things in 
heaven and in earth, in the dispensation of the fulness 



180 THE CARPENTER'S SON. 

of times, " in Christ ?" Are there to be two houses of 
God — one for the redeemed, the other for the angelic 
host? Is there not to be the rebuilding of the universe 
material and immaterial, and is not the whole to be the 
great House of God ? " In my Father's house are 
many mansions " — many abodes in one house of the 
Lord. That was the declaration of the Carpenter's 
Son. With such representation of the Temple, what an 
inspiration should the Temple be ! 

IV. What of the representative Builders of the Temple f 

In general it may be said that it was to them a work 
of love and of holy obedience, worthy of all their pow- 
ers and resources, and to be conformed exactly to the 
minute directions of God. Solomon said, "It is not a 
house for man, but for God." Hence it must be ac- 
cording to God's plan and pattern alone. 

1. See David. (1) See him in the matter of con- 
formity to the Divine pattern. It is written : " Then 
David gave to Solomon . . . the pattern of all that he 
had by the spirit ... of the house of the Lord. . . . 
All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in 
writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this 
pattern. And David said to Solomon his son, Be strong 
and of good courage and do it." David entered upon 
this work with full purpose of mind and heart, making 
immense provision not only from the public treasury, 
but munificent gifts of gold and silver from his own 
purse — in his language, "of mine own proper goods." 
He said, " I have set my affection unto the house of my 



THE TEMPLE. 181 

God." Hence, he gave himself, as he says, " mightily" 
to the work. And it was this example of David which 
stirred the hearts of the "princes/' and "captains," and 
"fathers" and "people" of Israel to do likewise, when 
David cried out : " And who, then, is willing to conse- 
crate his service this day unto the Lord?" They 
brought into the treasury of the Lord's house their 
" precious stones," and their gold and silver, of the one 
more than "5000 talents" and of the other " 10,000 
talents," and 100,000 talents of iron. This was not 
strange, as David had made provision of material so 
great that it was "without number" and "without 
weight." "When the people rejoiced, for that they 
offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered 
willingly to the Lord : and David the king also rejoiced 
with great joy." Nor was there the least self-adulation 
in these gifts to the Lord. David was humbled at 
the honor of thus being allowed to return to the 
Lord that which was the Lord's. "Blessed be the 
Lord," said he. " Thine, O Lord, is the great- 
ness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory 
and the majesty. . . . Both riches and honor 
come of thee, and thou reignest over all. . . . 
But who am I, and what is my people that we 
should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? 
for all things come of thee, and of thine own have 
we given thee. . . . Oh Lord our God, all this 
store that we have prepared to build thee a house for 
thine holy name cometh of thine hand, and is all thine 
own." 



182 the carpenter's SON. 

What a study this for God's people in build- 
ing the house of the Lord ! What a model for 
their mind, their heart and their hands! 

2. See Solomon. He has been referred to as a repre- 
sentative worker of a practical kind upon the house of 
the Lord : and so he was, and worthy is he of imitation 
in his employment of wisdom, and wealth, and glory 
and " largeness of heart " for the house of the Lord. 
And none the less stimulating because he represented 
the great Master-builder, who is the Supreme Model 
for all his co-workers. Let us glance at Solomon, first, 
as the symbol of the Carpenter's Son ; and then as an 
inspiring example for all. 

(1) As the Symbol of the Carpenter's Son. Thus we 
have viewed him before, but let us glance again, in 
view of the scripture-records of his qualifications of 
wealth, wisdom, glory and u largeness of heart." 

(a) His wealth. An idea of his immense riches may 
be obtained from the fact that, in addition to the wealth 
which he inherited from his father, he had an annual 
income of "666 talents of gold," not including the 
income from business and commercial relations. From 
every direction wealth was poured in upon him. It is 
said of the Queen of Sheba that " she gave the king 
a hundred and twenty talents of gold, and of spices 
very great store, and precious stones: . . . And the 
navy also of Hiram, that brought gold from Ophir, 
brought in from Ophir great plenty of almug trees, and 
precious stones." "And all the kings of Arabia, and 
governors of the country," brought gold and silver to 



THE TEMPLE. 183 

Solomon. So abundant were liis riches that it is written : 
" the king made silver in Jerusalem like stones." And 
this wealth he lavished most profusely upon the house 
of the Lord. Upon it and within it there seemed no 
further room for the bestowment of his silver and gold 
and precious stones; his cedar and his great hewn stones. 
Nothing could better represent consecration of the best 
gifts to God's service than Solomon's lavish expendi- 
ture on the House of the Lord. 

(b) His wisdom. He desired this above wealth and 
honor, and God made him the wisest of men. His 
wisdom in government is seen in his judgment in the 
case of the two women and the child claimed by both ; 
his wisdom in theology, by his satisfaction of the Queen 
of Sheba, who came to prove him by hard questions 
"concerning the name of the Lord;" his wisdom, in 
building the Lord's house, by the sentiment, " who is 
able to build him a house, seeing the heaven and the 
heaven of heavens cannot contain him? Who am I, 
then, that I should build him a house, save only to 
burn sacrifice before him?" Of his wisdom we have 
this summary: "And Solomon's wisdom excelled the 
wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all 
the wisdom of Egypt. For he was wiser than all men : 
than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman and Chalcol and 
Darda, the sons of Mabol ; and his fame was in all na- 
tions round about. And he spake three thousand pro- 
verbs ; and his songs were a thousand and five. And 
he spake of trees from the cedar tree that is in Lebanon 
even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall : he 



184 the carpenter's son. 

spake also of beasts and of fowl and of creeping things 
and of fishes. And there came of all people to hear the 
wisdom of Solomon from all kings of the earth, which 
had heard of his wisdom." And greater than his 
wisdom in botany and natural history, and literature 
and the sciences of divinity and political economy, was 
the practical wisdom of employing the best means and 
the best workmen for God's house. The most skilled 
artisans were imported, even those in whom God had 
given minds and hearts skilled pre-eminently for the 
work which they had to do. And all was done accord- 
ing to the pattern which David had received in writing 
of the Lord. 

(c) Of his glory what shall be said? The glory of his 
court was such that it overwhelmed the wealthy 
monarch of the south, who brought large gifts, but who 
received of Solomon all her heart could desire. As to 
his fame it is written "All the earth sought to 
Solomon, to hear his wisdom, which God had put in his 
heart. And they brought every man his present, ves- 
sels of silver and vessels of gold, and garments and armor 
and spices and horses and mules, a rate year by year." 
" And Solomon reigned over all the kings from the 
river even unto the land of the Philistines and to the 
border of Egypt," And all this glory he used to give 
glory to the house of the Lord. 

id) But of his "largeness of heart:" Solomon's mind, 
went out grandly to the nations of the earth. The 
spread of his fame he associated with the spread of the 
name of God, saying of those of a far country that came 



THE TEMPLE. 185 

to Jerusalem Ci for thy name's sake/' that " they shall 
hear of thy great name and of thy strong hand and of 
thy stretched out arm :" and he prayed for the stranger, 
" Hear thou in heaven thy dwelling-place, and according 
to all that the stranger calleth to thee for : that all people 
of the earth may know thy name to fear thee as do thy 
people Israel ; and that they may know that this house 
which I have builded is called by thy name." This was 
a heart broader than that of the Apostles before the day 
of Pentecost. But, it is written of Solomon, u And God 
gave him wisdom and understanding exceeding much, 
and largeness of heart even as the sand that is on the sea 
shore" This was a heart equal to the taking in of the 
house of God, not only in its magnificent model, but in 
its universal reality ! 

Thus did this splendid royal mason well represent the 
more glorious Carpenter's Son, whose wisdom and power 
are the wisdom and power of God ; whose, wealth is the 
earth's and the fulness thereof; and whose largeness of 
heart makes him the Friend of Sinners — the Saviour of 
the world ! And the Queen of Sheba's response to 
Solomon may well represent the world's reply to the 
world's great king : 2 Chron. ix. 8. 

(2) But Solomon was not only a symbol, he was an 
inspiration for all the Lord's builders in all time — 
especially for those who are most able to " lend a help- 
ing hand." Solomon did not hesitate to call on a 
wealthy king to aid in this work, and Hiram, king of 
Tyre, when thus called on, blessed God that he had 
raised up a wise Son to David to build a great house 



186 the cakpenter's son. 

unto the praise of God. And shall any man think 
himself too great, too wise, too rich, too famous, too 
broad-minded and broad-hearted to put his hand to 
God's house ? Let him stand rebuked before Hiram, 
King of Tyre ; let him be covered with shame in the 
presence of King Solomon ! Rather, let him be cast to 
the earth, and cover his lips in the dust, in the presence 
of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Lord God 
Almighty, who, because the builder of God's house, came 
to earth as " the Carpenter's Son." 

V. The Dedication. 

Grand was the prayer of Solomon, and his blessing 
upon the people, surrounded by the immense multitudes, 
of whom 150,000 were strangers from other lands. 
But, the grandest of all of the Dedication was, as has 
been said, the stupendous sacrifice of 22,000 oxen, and 
120,000 sheep! To human eyes that was merely awful: to 
the eyes of faith, seeing its representation of God's great 
sacrifice for which the house was built, it was awfully 
sublime ! And God came down in fire : and the 
glory of the Lord filled the house ! The prayer of 
Saints and the sacrifice of the Lamb of God will ever 
secure the Divine presence among his people engaged 
in the construction of the house of "the Carpenter's 
Son." 

I only add that the Temple's erection was the third 
pivotal period of the ante-Christian world's history, of 
which the two others were the Tabernacle and the Ark. 



CHAPTER XXI. 

IN CAPTIVITY: REBUILDING TEMPLE. 

The Lord is Governor among the nations. — Ps. xxii. 28. 

THE destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of 
God's people taught the great lesson that God's ser- 
vice and God's people are not mere names ; that sin is sin, 
and to be punished, wherever found ; and that " in every 
nation he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is 
accepted by him." In the distant past this last principle 
had had signal illustrations. The Hebrew thought that 
the divine presence and power for good was only to be 
manifested to the elected people, separated by their 
genealogy, their rites and their traditions from the rest 
of the world. But God had appeared graciously among 
those unknown to Jewish extraction or to the covenants 
of Israel. .Who was Jethro, the priest of Midian? and 
yet he wisely and divinely instructed the law-giver of 
Israel. Who was Melchisedec, the king of Salem? yet 
he was the God-ordered type of the personal priesthood 
of the Lord. Job does not appear in the genealogy of 
the children of Abraham, and yet he is divinely recorded 
u a man perfect and upright, and one that feared God 
and eschewed evil ; " and is celebrated in the Hebrew 
Scriptures as one of the three holiest men of the world's 
history. And has he not given to mankind, in his 
incomparable historic drama, which is full of divine 

187 



188 the cakpenter's son. 

truth, one of the grandest expositions of the unsearcha- 
bleness, almightiness, and absolute independence of 
him who sitteth upon the throne of the universe, doing 
his own pleasure in the armies of heaven and among 
the inhabitants of the earth, so that none can stay his 
arm or say, What doest thou? And was it not an 
indication of God's care for the nations that the Hebrews 
were taken in infancy and reared into a nation among 
pagans, which, by the way, was a type of "the Carpen- 
ter's Son," of whom it is recorded, "Out of Egypt 
have I called my Son." And as to Israel's relation to 
Egypt, was there ever a grander demonstration of divine 
sovereignty than the slave-son of Jacob becoming the 
virtual head of this mighty empire, and his family, who 
came as beggars into the land, going out the miraculous 
conquerors of Pharaoh and his hosts? Among their 
masters of the Babylonish captivity, to whom reference 
has been made, other blocks of truth were embedded 
for the foundation of the Lord's Temple. Divine 
Providence, threading the complications of court in- 
trigues and corruptions in the days of Esther — a Hebrew 
captive wonderfully made the queen of Persia — pub- 
lished her God's omniscience and omnipotence and om- 
nipresence by the marvellous preservation of his people 
and the destruction of their enemies, all by royal decree, 
not only in Shusan (the palace of Ahasuerus), but 
throughout his realm of one hundred and twenty-seven 
provinces, stretching from India to Ethiopia. The fact 
of this all-pervading divine providence, which is another 
name for the presence of Jehovah, was celebrated by a 



IN CAPTIVITY: REBUILDING TEMPLE. 189 

perpetual feast, called Purim, and by court records of 
the decrees of Esther and Mordecai. It was worth the 
captivity of a nation to have the name of their living 
and true God so exalted among the heathen by the 
providence that exalted his faithful servants, as implied 
in this record : " Then Esther the queen, the daughter 
of Abihail and Mordecai the Jew, wrote with all 
authority . . . and the decree of Esther confirmed the 
matters of Purim ; and it was written in the book . . . 
And all the acts of his power and might, and the 
declaration of the greatness of Mordecai, wherein the 
king advanced him, are they not written in the book of 
the chronicles of the kings of Media and Persia?" In 
the eventful reigns of several monarchs in the land of 
the captivity, how Jehovah-glorifying were the divine 
wonders. For instance — the divinely given interpre- 
tations and revelations of Daniel; and the sublime 
moral courage of the three Hebrew captive youths, who 
defied to his face the powerful despot, who would force 
them, by the sanctions of the fiery furnace, to idolatrous 
blasphemy of their God, thus: "O Nebuchadnezzar, 
we are not careful to answer thee in this matter. If it 
be so, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from 
the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of 
thine hand, O king. But if not, be it known unto 
thee, O king, that we will not serve thy gods, nor wor- 
ship the golden image which thou hast set up." What 
a victory for their God, was the decree of the monarch, 
after seeing "the Son of God" and his preserving 
power — two great foundation truths — in the midst of 



190 the carpenter's SON. 

the flames: " Therefore I make a decree, that every 
people, nation and language which speak anything 
amiss against the God of Shadrach, Meshach and 
Abednego, shall be cut in pieces . . . because there is no 
other God that can deliver after this sort." And per- 
sonally humbled by the God of his captives, he con- 
fesses : " Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and 
honor the King of heaven, all whose works are truth, 
and his ways judgment." A great foundation truth of 
the captivity was that little stone, cut out of the rock 
without hands, which demolished the grand image and 
filled the whole earth ! But the most marvellous and 
glorifying revelation of the God of Israel, was the 
rebuilding of the Temple of Jerusalem, through the 
agency of Ezra and Nehemiah, at the expense of the 
royal treasuries, by Cyrus and Artaxerxes ! Watching 
the erection of the Lord's house how profoundly must 
these pagan monarchs have. been impressed. These two 
men, Ezra and Nehemiah, were themselves a grand 
revelation. The intense godliness of the one and the 
magnificent nobility of the other proclaimed aloud the 
truth and the God of Israel. Ezra warns oif polluting 
hands from God's house, replying to Sanballat and 
Tobiah : " Ye have nothing to do with us to build a house 
to our God f and overwhelmed by his people's sins, this 
holy priest makes anguished confession, as if personally 
involved in the transgression, reminding of Moses, who 
would make himself an atonement for the people, and 
of Paul, who, for his brethren, could wish himself 
accursed from Christ. Into the noble character of Ne- 



IN CAPTIVITY: REBUILDING TEMPLE. 191 

hemiah, which must have been observed in the Persian 
court, a glimpse is given by two little incidents. First, 
Discovering that the grandson of the high priest was 
son-in-law to Sanballat, the Horonite, he says: "I 
chased him away from me" Second, When advised to 
save his life by fleeing into the temple, he replied : 
" Should such a man as I flee ? and who is there that 
being as I am would go into the temple to save his 
life? I will not go in." And with fine political and 
moral insight into his adviser he adds : " He was hired 
that I should be afraid and do so, and sin, and that they 
might have matter for an evil report, that they might 
reproach me." His adviser had been hired by Sanbal- 
lat, whose daughter's husband, Nehemiah had chased 
out of Ms sight ! David describes the man to abide in 
the Lord's presence as one " in whose eyes a vile person 
is contemned." The books of Ezra and Nehemiah are 
replete with pictures of the godliness and the goodliness 
of these two builders of God's house. But to royal 
pagan eyes, marvellous must have been the complete 
subordination of all the affairs of Jerusalem, municipal, 
political, social, and international, to the single work of 
erecting a Temple, which in heathen nations is only a 
subordinate concern. Jerusalem is for the Temple, not 
the Temple for Jerusalem. This is a new, a divine 
idea, illustrated- practically in their absorption, during 
their national restoration, in the law, the Psalms, the 
Covenants, the holiness, the erection of God's house. 
How different from heathen nationality ! There was no 
fanaticism. City walls w r ere necessary for the Temple's 



192 

safety, and houses were needed for worshippers in the 
Temple ; and " the people had a mind to work," and 
work they did upon their homes, and the defences of 
the city, with trowel in one hand and sword in the 
other ; but the Temple — the Temple of God — was the 
end of their labors and hopes. They recalled the taunt 
as they hung their harps on the willows by the rivers 
of Babylon, " Sing us one of the songs of Zion," and 
their mournful reply: " How shall we sing the Lord's 
song in a strange land?" And they longed to sing 
it again in the courts of their God. 

"And when the builders laid the foundation of the 
temple of the Lord, they set the priests in their apparel 
with trumpets, and the Levites, the sons of Asaph, with 
cymbals, to praise the Lord after the ordinance of 
David, King of Israel. And they sang together by 
course, in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord ; 
because he is good, for his mercy endureth forever 
toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great 
shout when they praised the Lord, because the founda- 
tion of the house of the Lord was laid. But many of 
the priests, and the Levites, and chief of the fathers 
who were ancient men that had seen the first house, 
when the foundation of this house was laid before their 
eyes, wept with a loud voice, and many shouted aloud 
for joy : So that the people could not discern the noise 
of the shout of joy from the noise of the weeping of the 
people : for the people shouted with a loud shout and 
the noise was heard afar off." 

The Sabbath of this theocratic civilization must have 



in captivity: rebuilding temple. 193 

been very suggestive to these befriending and God- 
inspired monarchs of the east. The following record 
by Nehemiah may have been read in the court of Persia, 
and might well be read in the courts and offices of all 
governments seeking the best interests of their people : 
" In those days saw I in Judah some treading wine- 
presses on the Sabbath, and bringing in sheaves, and 
leading asses : as also wine grapes and figs and all 
manner of burdens which they brought into Jerusalem 
on the Sabbath day, and I testified against them in the 
day wherein they sold victuals. There dwelt men of 
Tyre also therein, which brought fish and all manner 
of ware, and sold on the Sabbath, unto the children of 
Judah and in Jerusalem. Then I contended with the 
nobles of Judah and said unto them, What evil thing is 
this that ye do and profane the Sabbath day ? Did not 
your fathers thus, and did not our God bring all this 
evil upon us, and upon this city ? yet ye bring more 
wrath upon Israel by profaning the Sabbath. And it 
came to pass that when the gates of Jerusalem began to 
be dark before the Sabbath, I commanded that the gates 
should be shut, and charged that they should not be 
opened till after the Sabbath : and some of my servants 
set I at the gates that there should no burden be brought 
in on the Sabbath day. So the merchants and sellers 
of all kind of ware lodged without Jerusalem once or 
twice. Then I testified against them, and said unto 
them, Why lodge ye about the wall ? if ye do so again 
I will lay hands on you. From that time forth came 
they no more on the Sabbath. And I commanded the 
13 



194 the carpenter's son. 

Levites, that they should cleanse themselves and that 
they should come and keep the gates to sanctify the 
Sabbath day. Remember me, O my God, concerning 
this also, and spare me according to the greatness of thy 
mercy." 

And who can say that these foundation truths, im- 
bedded in the distant orient, did not lead to Jerusalem, 
at the birth of " the Carpenter's Son/' the wise men of 
the east? How strange that these wise men are called 
kings : and that their remains are enshrined— "-as they 
say" — in one of the grand temples of the Christian 
world. The Temple of Jerusalem was built by God ; 
and, the God-building idea engrafted in the human 
mind, likes to fancy, at times, that other of the world's 
grandest edifices have had the same origin. The pyra- 
mids are said, by an architect who has devoted many 
years to the study of the Ark and the Temple of Solo- 
mon, to have been built by the author of these struc- 
tures, by the hand of the builder of the former structure. 
The same idea is half seriously presented, with regard 
to the grand Cathedral covering the shrine of the three 
Christ-seeking kings of the east, in a letter by the wife 
of the author of Ben-Hur (published in the Richmond 
Dispatch, July 15, 1888, and copied here, by permission 
of its editor), perchance to elevate the mind to the glory 
of the Temple of Jerusalem and of that greater temple, 
of which the Cathedral at Cologne and that Temple of 
Jerusalem are only faint shadows and symbols. 

" How well I remember that day — that golden day — 
at Cologne ! The print of the Roman yoke is on it yet, 



IN CAPTIVITY: REBUILDING TEMPLE. 195 

for the Church of St. Marie holds the site of the 
Roman Capitol, and has resounded with the armed tread 
of the Legions of Trajan. 

" Of the treasures of the Cathedral nothing compares 
with the shrine of the Magi, the tomb behind the grand 
altar, where Gothic windows cast varied lights on the 
tessellated pavement and along the Ionic pillars. The 
casket is six feet long, modelled as a Roman Basilica, 
enriched with artistic, sacred figures, carved jewels, and 
chased and enamelled ornamentation. . . . 

" The carved stones belong to classic antique art, and 
the lapidary's work is delicate and marvellously fine. 
At the head end of the shrine is a movable panel 
which the keeper slips aside, and behold ! three bare 
skulls, each circled with a diamond crown. 

u The names are in square letters set with rubies 
which flash like flame : 

Gaspar. Melchior. Balthazar. 

". . . We lingered about the shrine as became believing 
pilgrims ; we marked the scene of the baptism of Jesus 
in the river Jordan, the panel representing the Redeemer 
seated on His throne, with his right hand raised and 
holding the Book of Life in his left ; the Virgin and 
Child, carved by some devout worker, who prayed as he 
wrought and was blessed in his labors. It is the finest 
specimen of mediaeval art, and is fitly placed in the first 
of sanctuaries. Not strange that the making of such a 
structure is cloudy with myths and traditions. There 
are the pictured windows of world-wide fame. Oh, it 



196 the cakpentek's son. 

is a pity to die without seeing them. They were clear 
glass once ; angels brushed them with their wings, and 
lo ! they took on many-colored radiance like sunset dyes. 
Ethereal hands finished them in a single night, and 
vainly does mortal artist try to copy tints which were 
never spread on earthly palette. 

" And no one knows who designed the famous cathe- 
dral. The legend-haunted Rhine abounds in explana- 
tion^ the matchless work. . . . 

" I like best to think it was conceived in the valley of 
vision under some divine inspiration. Better to me the 
tale that an emperor, generous and munificent, long ago 
summoned his builders together and promised them 
eternal fame if they would build a fane which should 
surpass all other fanes. There should be no limit in 
design, no bound to expense, no question as to time. 
Said the monarch to the artisans on bended knees before 
him : ' Let its splendor be like the first temple on Mt. 
Moriah. What I ask is perfection/ . . . 

" At the appointed day, plans and models were brought, 
drawings and traceries laid at the foot of the throne. 
But as one after another was unrolled the proud Empe- 
ror said : i They will not do ; this cathedral is to keep 
my name in remembrance while the world remains to let 
its spires point upward/ The designers left the pres- 
ence chamber, their eyes full of rage and tears of disap- 
appointment. 'Who but the devil can satisfy a king 
who asks impossibilities?' said they. One workman 
lingered behind when the train of aspirants had de- 
parted. He had no roll or parchment or box of models. 



IN CAPTIVITY : REBUILDING TEMPLE. 197 

he was an old man, bent and weak, wearing a green 
coat and a gray cap. 

" i Grant me this favor, O King/ he demanded in a 
shrill, piping voice, ' one day more to work at my draw- 
ings. I am so near to my ideal, so near. I have sought 
it through prayers and fastings; and last night I almost 
touched the plan, the design of a temple which shall 
eclipse the splendor of others as the sun outshines the 
small stars. My meditations are nearly ended, but the 
picture I see with the eye of my soul will not yet shape 
itself to my hand. It is very near/ He unrolled a 
slight parchment from his bosom. 'Dost thou see 
aught, O Emperor, a shape of beauty on this scroll ? ' 

" 'I see nothing/ said the monarch, coldly; 'its blank 
page has no lines for my sight/ 

" The little old man groaned in anguish and trembled. 
His hand shook as he refolded the paper. 

"'It is as I feared; the pencil of light was but a 
snare and deceit. Only grant one day more, O most 
merciful, and if I fail let me go back to my cell, for I 
have taken holy orders, and I will spend the few days 
left of threescore and ten in repentance that I let ambi- 
tion under my cowl.' 

" The pious Emperor graciously spoke : ' One day 
more, holy man, I give you ; and in your prayers forget 
not the name of your sovereign, who is low as the 
meanest in the sight of our common Master/ 

" Then the old man kissed the royal hand held out to 
him and backed like a courtier out of the chamber. 

u The monk was devout and humble. ' What am I, 



198 the carpenter's SONT. 

that I should win a great name?' he asked of himself; 
6 yet the shepherd on the plain of Midian was no more 
than the monk vowed to perpetual poverty, resting his 
naked feet on the bare floor of the cloister. i O Blessed 
Virgin, O Holy Mary/ he prayed, tf help the weakest 
of thy children, for my spirit fainteth.' 

" The pale outline of a superb temple floated in the 
air about him. He snatched his pencil and unrolled his 
paper, but the vague, formless thing faded like a dis- 
solving view — the dizzy pinnacles floated away. 

" Overcome with the long mental strain, he burst 
into tears of despair, and exclaimed : i Into thy hands, 
O Mary, I leave it ! ' So a sweet peace descended on 
him like a dove. He sunk to sleep in his oaken chair, 
and at the mystic hour of midnight, when the veil 
between the two worlds, seen and unseen, grows dim, he 
was roused by an awakening light. 

" It was not like the sun, nor yet of the moon ; 
neither was it a lamp nor the light of tapers. Awe- 
struck and enraptured, he sat still while his cell filled 
with the heavenly radiance. His eyes gradually be- 
came used to the shining wonder, and he was aware of 
the presence of four men with starry crowns on their 
heads. 

"The first was a grave man, with venerable white 
beard covering his breast ; in his hand he held a pair of 
compasses. The second, more youthful in appearance, 
carried a mason's square. The third, a strong man 
with heavy curling beard, held a rule ; and the fourth, 
a handsome lad with light, flowing auburn locks, brought 



IN CAPTIVITY: EEBUILDING TEMPLE. 199 

a level, thus betokening they were masters of the sacred 
art of Freemasonry. They glided in with solemn, 
soundless tread, and with them, last to come into his 
dazzled sight, entered the saintly Virgin, clothed with 
celestial beauty, carrying in her right hand a lily with 
silver-white flowers. 

" i I have heard thy prayer, and am here to help thee 
in thy need/ said the Virgin to the awe-stricken archi- 
tect. ' One penalty I lay upon thee/ 

" ' What is it, O Queen of Heaven ? ' 

" l For worldly ambition, and because thou hast said 
in thy heart, ' Solomon, I will surpass thee/ thy name 
shall be forgotten among the sons of men/ 

"'But/ cried the disappointed artisan, 'it is in hope 
of fame I have toiled, prayed, suffered. I have out- 
watched Orion and the sun has looked down on me as 
it rose. The cathedral of my heart and soul is to be 
the monument which he who sees will ask in wonder 
and amaze, Who was the architect ? ? 

11 ' There is but one condition/ said Mary, mildly ; 
' choose this instant, the hour passes/ 

" He covered his face with his hands and wept aloud ; 
a few moments his sobs echoed through the cell and the 
struggle was passed. He raised his eyes to the Blessed 
Virgin in thankfulness and exclaimed : i If only my 
holy work lives on, I am content that my name is 
written in Heaven/ 

" ' I shall write it with my own hand in the Book of 
Remembrance, where the prayers of the saints are 
recorded, for thou art worthy/ said the tender voice. 



200 the carpenter's son. 

' In six centuries, as men count time, the cathedral will 
be finished, hallowed by the prayers of such disciples as 
thou, and radiant with angelic light/ 

"She made a sign of command to the master- masons, 
and they sketched w T ith rapid touches a design which 
shone like fire on the bare walls of the cell. The 
forest of stone pillars shot on high, the arches curved 
to meet them, and tw;o majestic towers, flying butresses 
and pinnacles, went up higher and higher, like winged 
things, into the blue of heaven. In silence the old 
monk (I grieve that his name is lost) contemplated the 
divine revelation. When the gray light of dawn stole 
into his cell the vision softly faded, but the plans drawn 
by the four masters of the art of architecture under the 
eye of the Virgin Mother were burned into his memory. 
The cool breeze of morning fanned his forehead, and 
the sun cheerily looked into his narrow window. It 
was not the fever of a madman nor the delusion of Satan. 
He rose and whispered, ' When I wash my forehead 
with fresh dew the mists will clear away.' He went 
into the garden and walked an hour, all the while in 
prayer. He returned to his cell and spread the un- 
touched parchment. An invisible force guided his 
hand swiftly as light travels. Ground plan and eleva- 
tion, longitudinal and transverse sections, delicate detail 
drawings were made before noon, and when the minster 
clock struck twelve the happy architect laid his perfected 
sketch at the foot of the throne. 

" But such a work — firm as adamant, light as lace, 
lovely as music — is not complete in one, two or three 



IN CAPTIVITY : KEBUILDING TEMPLE. 201 

generations, and after exhausting wars the masons were 
dismissed by the government. Then at night the ghost 
of the architect would walk the walls, moaning, like the 
winds in the pines : 1 1 cannot rest till this work goes 
on ; my bed is hard. It is no place of rest till the men 
come back to their sheds/ He was always dressed in 
green (for the German ghosts are not sworn to white 
robes), with a gray cap on his head, a measuring-rod 
and a pair of compasses in his hand. 

" Not till the times of the good Emperor William was 
the final wreath of stone foliage laid in place, just 632 
years to a day after the laying of the first foundation. 

" And thus was created the fairest temple outside of 
the City of Precious Stones. Fit resting place for the 
shrines of the Wise Men from the East — 

"The Theee Kings of Cologne." 

Bright is this picture of the fane that rises above the 
mythical tomb of the three kings, as the grander Cathe- 
dral of Rome rises above the equally mythical tomb of 
the Apostle Peter. But bright as is the picture, it is 
only as the dawn is to midday in comparison with the 
reality of that Temple going up by the prayers and 
labors of saints to the honor of the King of saints, 
which is " exceeding magnifical of glory," and is dedi- 
cated to the life and death and ascension of him to whom 
the wise men of the east brought their offerings of "gold 
and frankincense and myrrh," and who is indeed " the 
King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, to 
whom be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen" 



CHAPTER XXII. 

IN THE PKOPHETS. 

For the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.—- Rev. xix. 10. 

THE Carpenter's Son said : " Search the Scriptures, 
for in them ye think ye have life, and they are they 
that testify of me." We have seen how they testify of 
his presence and power in every age of the world, and 
of the origin and progress and completion of the house 
he was anointed to erect. He himself reviewed the 
Scriptures, in this respect, before some of his fellow- 
workmen. The record is: "And beginning at Moses 
and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the 
Scriptures the things concerning himself." And in that 
day of his incarnation he predicted things of himself, 
which are written in the New Testament, and have come 
to pass. Need we refer to his predictions of his own 
death and resurrection and ascension, and his coming 
again on the day of Pentecost, and his abiding with his 
people who go forth to build his house among the 
nations of the earth ? And, in his Apocalypse, what 
striking pictures of his works, already accomplished 
and to be achieved, even unto the completion of the 
Lord's house. And as he is the beginning and ending 
of all revelation, all these predictions of holy writ are 
from him. It was he that foretold of Israel's blessings, 
should they obey the Lord, and of their cursings when 
202 



IN THE PROPHETS. 203 

they rebelled against his commandments. It was he 
that predicted what should befall the nations in the day 
of Israel ; and what shall come to pass, with regard to 
his people and with regard to the world, even unto the 
end of time. And plainly has he foretold with regard 
to himself, in connection with the building of God's 
house, from the very beginning. His mouthpiece was 
often the prophets, but he was the spirit of their 
prophecy. Hear the words of Peter, with regard to the 
great salvation, " Of which salvation the prophets have 
inquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the 
grace that should come unto you : searching what or 
what manner of time the Spirit of Christ which was in 
them did signify, when it testified aforehand the sufferings 
of Christ and the glory that should follow, . . . which 
things the angels desire to look into." And all through 
their writings, the writers of the great salvation quote 
the words of ancient prophecy with regard to the 
Carpenter's Son, which he himself predicted. As a 
single example, his first biographer, Matthew, quotes, in 
his first two chapters, no less than four passages of the 
ancient prophets, with regard to this Son of David and 
Abraham, the Carpenter's Son. 

And what were some of his ancient predictions with 
regard to himself? In his own person, he predicted, to 
Satan himself, that he would be his opposing power in 
the world's history, in the striking words: " And I will 
put enmity between thee and the woman, and between 
thy seed and her seed : it shall bruise thy head and 
thou shalt bruise his heel." And has not this come to 



204 the carpenter's son. 

pass? And how fully the triumph of the woman's 
seed over "the old serpent, which is the devil/' shall 
come to pass, was predicted through Abraham and Isaac 
and Jacob, in their prophecy, that in their " seed," which 
Paul says is " Christ," all the nations of the earth shall 
be blessed. And through the dying Jacob the Lord 
God reported prophetically progress in this great tri- 
umph, when he declared, " The sceptre shall not depart 
from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until 
Shiloh come : and unto him shall the gathering of the 
people be." And did not Judah stand until the Car- 
penter's Son, the Lawgiver and King of Israel, came ? 
By the mouth of Baalam even, he repeats, "There 
shall come a star out of Jacob and a sceptre shall rise 
out of Israel, . . . out of Jacob shall come he that 
shall have dominion." And is not this the Prophet 
and Lawgiver predicted by Moses, " And the Lord said 
unto me, ... I will raise them up a Prophet from 
among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my 
words in his mouth"? Hence are Moses and the Car- 
penter's Son coupled in the gospel thus: "The law 
came by Moses, but grace and truth by Jesus Christ." 
Even in the remotest times of recorded history, we hear 
him speaking in the Patriarch of Uz, " For I know that 
my Redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the 
latter day upon the earth : And though after my skin 
worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see 
God." David is a favorite mouthpiece, and through 
him the Holy One of Israel anticipates his anguish on 
Calvary, crying, "My God, my God, why hast thou 



IN THE PROPHETS. 205 

forsaken me!" And describes himself, " My strength 
is dried up like a potsherd ; and my tongue cleaveth to 
my jaws ; and thou hast brought me into the dust of 
death." And even of his heartless murderers he pre- 
dicts, " They look and stare upon me. They part my 
garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture." 
Through the Evangelical Prophet, Isaiah, he gives in 
advance the salient points of his whole earthly history, 
as the Carpenter's Son, from his miraculous birth and 
divine appellations, through all his sufferings and inju- 
ries for the sake of the sinner, even unto his death and 
burial and ascension to glory ; and gives it so vividly 
that the picture is a perfect portrait of the original, 
which proves him present with the prophet and proves 
the prophecy the word of God. Though depicted seven 
hundred years before the birth of Mary's son, the 
picture seems painted after his death. He himself, in 
the days of his flesh, reads from Isaiah the passage: 
" The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he hath 
anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor/' and 
declares that it was fulfilled in his mission ; and the 
evangelist Philip, taking as his text the passage from 
this prophet, " He was led as a sheep to the slaughter," 
preached unto the Ethiopian, " Jesus." Jerome said 
that Isaiah's scripture was not a prophecy, but a gospel. 
And does not Cyrus, whom the prophet called by name 
as the coming builder of the Lord's house, which Jo~ 
sephus says was the cause of that monarch's rebuilding 
the Temple of Jerusalem, appear like a type of Christ — 
the Master-builder of that more splendid and enduring 



206 the carpenter's son, 

Temple whose glory this seer of God saw in enwrapped 
visions ? Without regard to chronological order, I re- 
mark, with respect to the great inspirer of prophetical 
truth, that his voice is plainly heard through Malachi: 
" Remember ye the law of Moses, my servant, w T hich 
I commanded unto him in Horeb for all Israel, with the 
statutes and judgments . . . Bring ye all the tithes into 
the storehouse and prove me if I will not pour you out 
a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive 
it . . . Behold I will send my messenger and he shall 
prepare the way before me; and the Lord, whom ye 
seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the mes- 
senger of the covenant whom ye delight in . . . But 
who shall abide the day of his coming? . . . Behold 
I will send you Elijah the prophet, before the coming 
of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: and he 
shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and 
the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come 
and smite the earth with a curse . . . But unto you that 
fear his name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with 
healing in his wings . . . And all nations shall call you 
blessed. . . . For from the rising of the sun even unto 
the going down of the same, my name shall be great 
among the Gentiles, . . . And they shall be mine, saith 
the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my 
jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own 
son that serveth him." Who speaks thus by the mouth 
of Zechariah : " I will return to Jerusalem with mercies : 
my house shall be built in it . . . behold I will bring 
forth my servant the Branch. For, behold, the stone 



IN THE PROPHETS. 207 

that I have laid before Joshua ; upon one stone shall 
be seven eyes . . . Behold the man whose name is The 
Branch : and he shall grow up out of his place, and 
he shall build the temple of the Lord . . . Rejoice 
greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of 
Jerusalem : behold, thy Kii)g cometh unto thee : he is 
just and having salvation ; lowly, and riding upon an 
ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass . . . Awake, 
O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man 
that is my fellow, saith the Lord of hosts : smite the 
Shepherd, and the sheep shall be scattered : and I will 
turn my hand upon the little ones ... In that day 
shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness 
unto the Lord." 

By Haggai he says : " Build the house and I will 
take pleasure in it. ... I will shake all nations, and 
the Desire of all nations shall come : and I will fill this 
house with glory . . . The silver is mine, and the gold 
is mine, saith the Lord of hosts. The glory of this 
latter house shall be greater than the former: and in 
this place will I give peace, saith the Lord of hosts." 
Sad are his words through Zephaniah; but he speaks 
comfortingly of the distant future : " I will make you 
a name and a praise among all people of the earth, 
when I turn back your captivity before your eyes, saith 
the Lord." Through the lips of Habahhuh 9 he de- 
nounces woe, woe, woe against the sins of his people, 
and against their terrible enemies; but he puts his 
Spirit in the heart of the prophet, who utters this beauti- 
ful language of faith : " Although the fig tree shall not 



208 the carpenter's son. 

blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour 
of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; 
the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall 
be no herd in the stalls : yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I 
will joy in the God of my salvation. The Lord God is 
my strength, and he will make my feet like hinds 7 feet and 
he will make me to walk upon mine high places." Woes 
are poured forth against Nineveh, through the prophet 
Nahum; but the Lord saith to his people : u Though I 
have afflicted thee, I will afflict thee no more . . . Be- 
hold upon the mountains the feet of him that bringeth 
good tidings, that publisheth peace ! " By the prophetic 
Spirit of the Lord, Micah predicts that out of Bethle- 
hem shall come forth a " ruler in Israel whose goings 
forth have been from everlasting . . . and whose name 
shall be great unto the ends of the earth. ... In the 
last days it shall come to pass that the mountain of the 
house of the Lord shall be established in the top of the 
mountain, and many nations shall come and say, Come, 
and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, and to the 
house of the God of Jacob. ; Jonah was an unworthy 
prophet, but he typified the buried Lord, and in the 
whale's belly glorified him by looking unto his " holy 
temple/' and confessing : %i Salvation is of the Lord." 
Only the Lord of all could utter these words through 
Obadiah: " Behold, I have made thee small among the 
heathen . . . but the kingdom shall be the Lord's." 
Terrible are the divine words by the herdman of Tekoa, 
Amos; but the Lord is gracious, saying : "Can two walk 
together except they be agreed ? . . . Seek ye me, and 



IN THE PROPHETS. 209 

live. Seek not Bethel, nor enter into Gilgal. . . . Seek 
the Lord and ye shall live. Seek him that maketh the 
seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death 
into the morning. ... It is he that buildeth his stories 
in the heaven; . . . The Lord is his name. . . . Ir that 
day will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is 
fallen . . . and I will build it as in the day of old." 
The Spirit and the times of refreshing from above, 
promised by the Carpenter's Son, was predicted by his 
Spirit in the prophet Joel: U I will pour out my Spirit 
upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall 
prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young 
men shall see visions . . . and it shall come to pass 
that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord 
shall be saved." Whose words are these by the mouth 
of Hosea: "The Holy One is in the midst of thee . . . 
I will ransom thee from the fear of the grave : I will 
redeem thee from death. Oh, death, I will be thy 
plagues ; oh, grave, I will be thy destruction ! . . . 
Take with thee words and turn to the Lord ; say unto 
him, Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously : 
so will we render the calves of our lips ; . . . I will heal 
their backsliding, I will love them freely ; . . . I will 
be as the dew unto Israel; he shall grow as the lily, and 
cast his roots as Lebanon. Who is wise, and he shall 
understand these things ? ... for the ways of the 
Lord are right, and the just shall walk in them." And 
what shall be said of the Lord of inspiration in the 
heart and on the lips of the greater prophets, Daniel, 
and Jeremiah, and Ezekielf Most manifestly was he 
14 



210 the carpenter's SON. 

with the hero of the lions' den and the wisest man of 
the courts of the east, as history has already demon- 
strated ; and it was not strange that the exact time 
of his personal advent and sacrifice, predicted by this 
man, who is recorded by holy writ as one of the three 
holiest of the sons of men, should occur as indicated in 
confirmation of the covenant of the Godhead. As to 
Jeremiah and Ezekiel, they were possessed of the Mas- 
ter's Spirit of prophecy under very diverse circumstances 
— the one remaining amid the desolation of ruined Jeru- 
salem, the other going captive to the land of the Chal- 
deans. It is not strange that the Carpenter's Son was 
thought by some to be the prophet Jeremiah, so like was 
"the man of sorrows" to the suffering and weeping 
prophet, who suffered in person indignity, injustice, 
cruelty and martyrdom ; and whose lamentations over 
the sins and ruin of his people, depicted in the most 
graphic and heart-rending manner, are only exceeded 
by the soul-wail of him who cried, "my soul is exceed- 
ingly sorrowful, even unto death," over the world's sin 
and overthrow, which was the unutterable anguish of 
this vicarious and atoning sufferer. How like the Mas- 
ter's rebukes and pathos these words of the prophet : 
" Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The temple of 
the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the 
Lord are these. ... Is this house, which is called by 
my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Be- 
hold, even I have seen it, saith the Lord. . . . O Jeru- 
salem, wash thine heart from wickedness, that thou 
mayest be saved ! . . . And I will give you pastors 



IN THE PROPHETS. 211 

according to mine heart, which shall feed you with 
knowledge and understanding . . . For these things I 
weep; mine eye, mine eye runneth down with water, 
because the Comforter that should relieve my soul is far 
from me ; my children are desolate, because the enemy 
prevailed. . . . Mine eye runneth down with rivers of 
water for the destruction of the daughter of my 
people ! " Jeremiah's prophecy is the utterance of the 
very spirit of the agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary. 
Ezekiel had a face of " flint " and a forehead of "ada- 
mant," and his utterances were as powerful and terrific 
as they were magnificent and mysterious. Away from 
Jerusalem, the Temple was more constantly and more 
vividly before his mind, and his superlatively grand 
visions on the bank of the Chebar were derived, by in- 
spiration, mainly from the Temple. And most worthy 
of note is it that one-sixth of all his prophetic scripture 
is given to a minute and exalted picture of the Temple 
to be erected, which was not realized in the Temple of 
Jerusalem. He had belabored his people for building 
the Lord's house with " untempered mortar ; " for de- 
filing it by false and wicked worship. And so terrible 
was the wickedness of the land, that he declares and 
reiterates that the presence in it of even Noah, Daniel 
and Job could not save it ! But by the Word and the 
Spirit the dry bones of the valley are clothed with flesh 
and filled with life and stand up, " an exceeding great 
army." This is to overthrow the adversaries of God 
and his temple. Thus is there to be a resurrection of 
the dead world, under the power of him who is " the 



212 the carpenter's son. 

resurrection and the life," and all nations shall be 
gathered into the house and city of the Lord. In the 
vision of this temple, depicted so particularly by the 
prophet, the Lord said : u The uncircumcised in heart 
shall not enter my sanctuary : . . . I will give them a 
new heart." And he called the temple " The place of 
my throne and the place of the soles of my feet, where 
I will dwell in the midst of the children of Israel for- 
ever;" and the name of the city surrounding it is, "The 
Lord is there." What temple is that ? Is it any other 
than that of the New Jerusalem — the city of our God ? 
But, midway between the old and the new dispensa- 
tions, stood the greatest of the prophets, — that Elijah- 
like man of the desert, whose rugged mien and coarse 
food and severe raiment were in rigid harmony with his 
robust spirit and powerful voice, — whose mission was 
represented as "the voice of one crying in the wilder- 
ness ; " that preacher of fruitful repentance, and of 
baptism unto faith in him who was to baptize in the 
Holy Ghost and in fire; who emptied cities and districts 
by the attractive power of his terrible eloquence; of 
whom Matthew wrote, " Then went out to him Jerusa- 
lem and all Judea and all the region round about Jor- 
dan, and were baptized of him, confessing their sins ; " 
and one greater than Matthew said: " Among those 
that are born of women there is not a greater prophet 
than John the Baptist" — that man on whom great 
honor was conferred by a bloody martyrdom for the 
truth, and the greatest honor conferred on mortal man, 
as witnessed in this record : 






IN THE PROPHETS. 213 

" Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto 
John, to be baptized of him. But John forbade him, 
saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest 
thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, 
Suffer it to be so now : for thus it becometh us to fulfil 
all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, 
when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the 
water : and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and 
he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and 
lighting upon him : and, lo, a voice from heaven, say- 
ing, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well 
pleased." That grand man came, not only as the imme- 
diate herald of him whose shoe-latchet he was unworthy 
to loose, but as the mouthpiece of the Spirit of the 
u Holy One of Israel." Though his cousin after the 
flesh, he did not know him, in his true nature and work, 
until he was revealed by the Spirit and the dove in 
the baptismal waters. When beclouded in mind, by 
the horrid dungeon of Herod's Castle, he sends for 
light to him who replies, as conclusive testimony of his 
Messiahship, " The poor have the gospel preached unto 
them." Thus this mighty man of God, inspired by the 
same Spirit that inspired all the prophets of God, look- 
ing back into the long past, through the sacrificial 
ritual of the Temple and Tabernacle, and back to the 
altars of the first inhabitants of our earth visited by 
the manifested Son of God, and yet back to the 
" Lamb slain from the foundation of the world ;" and 
doubtless looking forward to the end of all this sym- 
bolic blood, in a greater, all-comprehending, sacrificial 



214 the carpenter's son. 

offering for the world's restoration, coming directly 
upon "the Carpenter's Son," whom he had baptized, 
and in the presence of the people, before whom the 
world-moving John was to decrease, and the "Son 
of Mary" to increase, cried: "Behold, the Lamb of 
God ! " — the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of 
the world; the Lamb for whose oflFering our globe was 
built as an altar, and for whose glory is erecting, by 
the combined creatures of his hand, the Temple univer- 
sal and eternal, whose foundations are cemented in the 
blood of this Lamb of God. The Alpha and Omega of 
all prophecy and all revelation and all the universe is 
" the Carpenter's Son." 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

IN THE GOSPEL. 

I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord. 
—Rev. i. 8. 

THAT was a striking and suggestive scene when 
" the Carpenter's Son/' who was born " in the 
city of David/' and of whom the angel Gabriel said, 
before his birth, " The Lord God shall give unto him 
the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over 
the house of Jacob forever/' and whom the godly 
Simeon, when the child, eight days old, was brought 
into the temple to receive the seal of the Covenant with 
Abraham, called "A light to lighten the gentiles and 
the glory of thy people Israel," — that was a suggestive 
sight, I say, when this Carpenter's Son, so intro- 
duced into the world, and so predicted by the pro- 
phets, in connection with the Temple, appeared in the 
Temple, at the age of twelve years, " sitting in the 
midst of the doctors, both hearing them and asking 
them questions," so that "all that heard him were 
astonished at his understanding and answers." And 
more suggestive was it because of his vindication of his 
conduct in leaving his father and mother to appear thus 
in the house of the Lord, in the words, " Wist ye not 
that I must be about my Father's business?" And, in 
perfect consistence with this business of his Father's 

215 



216 the carpenter's son. 

house, which was to be rebuilt and enlarged by him, 
was the fact that " he went down with them, and came 
to Nazareth, and was subject unto thern," working at 
the carpenter's bench, with his Father's ideal house 
before his mind. And in perfect harmony with both 
facts, " he increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor 
with God and man." That this ideal House of God, 
predicted by the prophets, symbolized by the Taber- 
nacle and Temple, was literally before his mind, may be 
repeated and established, as we turn to the considera- 
tion of the Carpenter's Son as he appears in the 
gospel. Let us consider, as in his mind, 

I. This Temple-Idea. 

1. This idea he would have as a good and thoughtful 
man. The original concept of the human mind, with 
regard to God, is associated with the idea of worship* 
Worship by man implies locality for the worshipper and 
the worshipped, and here the house or temple idea 
begins. Hence, Jehovah, referring to Cain's sin, said, 
"a sin- offering lieth at the door." Jacob called a pile 
of stones, dedicated to God, u Bethel," the house of 
God. Every altar erected anywhere, whether in grove 
or on mountain-top, involved the idea of a house of 
God. Hence the altars and temples for all gods by all 
peoples and in all times. This is a universal testimony 
to this innate conception of the human mind that for 
the worship of God, there must be a Temple. And the 
better and the more thoughtful the man the more dis- 



IN THE GOSPEL. 217 

tinct would be the idea and desire and effort to give it 
realization. 

2. But, the Carpenter's Son was also a Jew. By 
divine command, Moses embodied this idea into the 
Tabernacle, and Solomon into the Temple. This gave 
the idea a sensible realization — a " local habitation and 
a name." Henceforth the Jew associated all worship 
with a visible house of God. This, to the Jew, was the 
very abode of God. Whether in the ends of the earth 
or in the depths of the sea, the eyes of the pious Jew 
were turned toward Jerusalem. The instinctive cry of 
his heart was, " If I forget thee, O Jerusalem ! " And 
Jerusalem meant " the Temple." Here appears a dif- 
ference between the pagan mind and the Jewish mind. 
The pagan had, with regard to his metropolitan city, 
the political idea most prominent. He built the city, 
then he erected a temple to his God. The chief thought 
and concern was Athens, Ephesus, Rome ; then the 
Temple to Minerva, to Diana, to Jupiter. Not so with 
the Hebrew. Jerusalem was the city of the Temple ; 
and not the Temple a sacred house in Jerusalem. The 
tribes went up to Jerusalem, wherever they were, because 
there was the house of God. The fact of the supremacy 
of the Temple-idea might be illustrated in the psalms, 
the prophecies, the worship and all the history of this 
people. But, a striking illustration is found' in the re- 
building of the Temple by the decree of Cyrus. The 
book of Ezra indicates clearly that the longing of the 
captive Jew, and the order of this eastern monarch, 
whose mind was influenced by the prophecy of Isaiah 



218 the carpenter's son, 

and the wishes of Ezra, had prime reference, not to the 
rebuilding of Jerusalem, but to the rebuilding of the 
Temple. The city was merely the necessary surround- 
ing of the Temple. The pagan enemies of the Jews, 
Sanballat, Tobiah and the rest, who had before them 
the political idea of a capital city or a king, always 
refer to the building of the walls and the city; but 
Ezra and Cyrus speak rather of the building of the 
Temple. Hence, after the Temple was finished, it is 
said that " the city was great but the houses w T ere few." 
Thus the Temple-idea was the main Jewish idea of 
God's worship. And the mind of the Carpenter's Son 
was formed in the same Temple-idea mould, and he had 
awful reverence for his Father's house. With what in- 
dignation he drove out the money-changers ; and was it 
not because of the Temple that he made the bitter 
lament : " O Jerusalem, Jerusalem ! . . . Behold, your 
house is left unto you desolate ! " 

3. But he, more than man and Jew, had the divine 
mind, with regard to worship and the Temple. He 
suggested it when he told the woman of Samaria that 
neither in Jerusalem nor in Mount Gerizim would be 
confined the worship of him, who, as a spirit, is to be 
worshipped in spirit and in truth. The protomartyr 
Stephen also had the idea of the Master-builder, when 
he said : • Solomon built him an house. Howbeit the 
Most High dwelleth not in temples made with hands . 
as saith the prophet, Heaven is my throne and earth is 
my footstool : what house will ye build me? saith the 
Lord : or what is the place of my rest ? Hath not my 



IN THE GOSPEL. 219 

hand made all these things ? " These words raise the 
mind to the very idea of the temple the Carpenter's 
Son came to erect for the divine glory, which is to 
compass earth and heaven and all things made by his 
hands, and to be infinite and everlasting. This is the 
original divine Temple-idea ; this was the idea fixed as 
a model before the mind of the Carpenter's Son ; this 
was the idea that his co-workers and the expounders of 
the doctrine of God's house had before their minds. 
Max Miiller's " Science of Thought " holds that lan- 
guage is the best exponent of mind ; and the language 
of Christ and his apostles clearly indicate this ever- 
present idea. Notice the expressions of the Master- 
builder : " Upon this rock will I build my church ; " 
" The keys of the kingdom of heaven ; " " Strive to 
enter the strait gate; " " Ye cannot enter the kingdom;" 
" In my Father's house are many mansions." Notice the 
ear-marks on the language of his apostolic co-workers : 
No sooner did Peter, James and John see him trans- 
figured, with Moses and Elias, than they proposed to 
erect " three tabernacles." In referring to the progress 
of the Church, all of them are full of such expressions as 
" corner-stone," " foundations/' " lively stones," " build- 
ers," " built up," " framed together," " head of the cor- 
ner," " earthly house of this tabernacle," " house not 
made with hands," "edifying," "household of God," 
" gates," " walls," "New Jerusalem." In our day the 
church-house is called " the church ; " and the end of 
the ministry, for the believing, is "the edifying of the 
body of Christ." Excepting the word God, there are 



220 THE carpenter's son. 

perhaps no words used so often in the Bible as words 
implying building, literal, spiritual and ecclesiastical, 
which are used no less than three thousand times. This 
is not strange in a book specifically descriptive of the 
construction and constructors of the Temple of God. 
And for the realizing of this great edification, the 
Master-builder comprehends every part of his religious 
economies, every object of every department of crea- 
tion, as well as all providences, plans and purposes : and 
this Temple may be now more methodically considered 
under the heads of its Foundations, its Material, its 
Workers, its Methods, its Gradual Construction, its 
Prospects of Success and Final Consummation. Having 
considered the Temple-idea, we shall consider next, 

II. The Temple-Foundations. 

1. The foundation must be deeply, broadly and most 
substantially laid. (1.) A peculiarity of this temple is 
that it is to be everlasting. This is involved in the 
statement, " The gift of God is eternal life." Other 
gifts of life were not everlasting — neither the life of 
man nor of angel. But this creation is to have no end. 
It must be founded, therefore, deeper than the founda- 
tions of nature. It must be founded on the being of 
Jehovah himself. This is implied in its corner-stone, 
the Divine Lamb, being slain before the foundation ot 
the world. This temple belongs to the original concep- 
tion of the divine mind, which was to be realized 
by the creation of all other things. It is identified 
w T ith the very being of the almighty and eternal. The 



IN THE GOSPEL. 221 

foundation is laid in the very essence of God. Hence 
his purposes, his plans, his providences, all have refer- 
ence to this construction. Hence, the Father saith to 
the Son, ' fc Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever." 
No catastrophe is ever to overthrow this Temple, as the 
Temple at Jerusalem, the temple of human nature, the 
temple of angelic nature, was overthrown. This is the 
ground of the perfect hope of God's servants, and their 
perfect love which casteth out all fear. " There remain- 
eth, therefore, a rest — a Sabbath-keeping — for the people 
of God," in that Temple made not with hands, eternal 
in the heavens. (2.) And how broad must be the 
foundation ? It must be broader than the foundation 
of nature ; for all nature redeemed and holy is to be 
included within its dimensions : it must be broader than 
universal convictions; because the innate sense of the 
creature can never be co-extensive with the moral attri- 
butes of the Creator, which are to be represented by 
this Temple : it must be broader than the expanse of 
creation or of thought or of conception ever reached by 
the wing of the loftiest of the intelligences of the uni- 
verse ; for the plan of this Temple and its construction 
is declared to be a mystery to them. "The measuring 
rod" is a favorite instrument in prophetic visions 
of this house; but nothing short of the measuring rod 
that laid off the divine ideal of that Temple — which 
was the eternal love of the Father in the Son — could 
take the measurement of its realization, though Paul 
prayed with holy ambition that, with all saints, we 
might "comprehend the breadth and the length, the 



£22 the carpenter's son. 

height and the depth, and to know the love of Christ, 
which passeth knowledge, being filled with all the full- 
ness of God." As now the mind of man, by aid of 
the appliances of science, reaches the limits of conceiva- 
ble distance in the expanse of the physical world, only 
to find that that apparent limit is the starting point 
of distance infinitely greater, so in the endless future 
will there be discoveries of the foundations of this 
Temple only to lead on to further discoveries, the real 
limits of which are only short of the limitless build- 
ing conception of the divine nature. Theoretically and 
truly, the creature cannot, in any regard, be equal to the 
Creator, the finite to the infinite; but, so far as the 
created mind can apprehend, they may be, in the pro- 
gressive cycles of eternity, one, indivisible and co-ever- 
lasting. Is this not involved in the redeemed life being 
"hid with Christ in God?" (3.) And most substan- 
tially laid must be this foundation. The blocks of 
truth must be more than granite-like in their gravity, 
their compactness, their disintegratedness, their everlast- 
ingness. Some of these truths we have noticed in 
former economies of God, laid in the foundation, as, for 
instance, the divine unity, and sacrifice, and election, 
and presence among men, and retribution, and universal 
conviction and labors with regard to the realization of 
his eternally-conceived and purposed and decreed Tem- 
ple of glory. In the gospel these were all confirmed, 
and other great blocks of truth superadded. The cor- 
ner-stone itself was reset, in the actual blood of " the 
head of the corner," in the awful mysteries of Geth- 



IN THE GOSPEL. 223 

semane and Calvary. " Christ before Pilate," so graph- 
ically depicted by Munkacsy, but more graphically by 
the pencil of inspiration, was fearfully symbolic of that 
governmental apprehension and condemnation, whereby 
" he that knew no sin was made sin for us that we 
might be made the righteousness of God in him," and 
to which Peter refers on the day of Pentecost in these 
mystic words : " Him, being delivered by the determi- 
nate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have taken, 
and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Here 
was laid a great block, as to vicarious atonement and 
justification by faith. The divine incarnation had de- 
monstration in the miracle-working Carpenter's Son, 
whose doctrine of the spirituality of the divine Temple 
was grandly illustrated in his Sermon on the Mount. In 
these facts were involved the divine Trinity and grace, 
and human regeneration, redemption, adoption and sanc- 
tification. The resurrection and ascension of the Car- 
penter's Son, and his gift of the Holy Spirit, established 
his own eternal priesthood and the bodily resurrection of 
those united with him, who here are "a royal priesthood, 
a holy nation," and hereafter are to be made " kings and 
priests unto God." These blocks of foundation-truth were 
laid in the gospel, and made the hope of the believer, 
entering into the holy of holiest in the heavenly fane, 
"sure and stedfast." These are samples of the " living 
rocks " on which the house of God was founded, so that 
" the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." It is 
upon these, and similar truths, that are based the divine 
promises, which are "yea and amen in Christ Jesus." 



224 the carpenter's son. 

2. Ill laying these elements of the foundation of his 
house, in the mind and heart of his generation, the Car- 
penter's Son had no little difficulty, as well as his work- 
men, because of the erroneous and enormous views enter- 
tained with regard to the foundation of the typical house 
of Israel. Hence the denunciations by the Master-builder 
of the Scribes and Pharisees, who were maliciously blind 
guides leading the blind ; the impressive parabolic teach- 
ing of him that spake " as never man spake," accompanied 
by his practical and persuasive devotion to the people ; 
the powerful arguments for the doctrines of grace made 
by the apostle to the Romans and Galatians, and in other 
inspired writings of the gospel. The true character of 
the Jewish economy was fully elucidated in the Epistle 
to the Hebrews, in which is shown that, in all its ordi- 
nances and paraphernalia, it was only " the shadow of 
things to come." But the gospel was not only "a 
stumbling-block to the Jew," it was u an offence to the 
Greek." The pagan mind was appealed to on the 
ground of its own profoundest convictions and most 
sacred practices; it being only possible to realize, in 
the Triune God and his Temple, what they were groping 
after in their innumerable divinities and their dreams of 
Utopia and golden ages. To many Jews, led to look 
from Jerusalem the fallen to " Jerusalem the golden," 
the Carpenter's Son was revealed as their promised 
Messiah ; and by a greater number of pagans he was 
accepted as the personal and divine embodiment of all 
the good elements of their multitudinous gods. Thus, 
finally, the foundations were established thoroughly, not 



IN THE GOSPEL. 225 

merely dejure but de facto, which are described as "the 
foundations of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ 
himself being the chief corner-stone." 

III. Temple Material. 

1. This must be holy. The washing services, the 
selections and the rejections of the Tabernacle and the 
Temple illustrated this. The clean and the unblemished 
animal was to be offered; the diseased and the unclean 
worshipper was excluded ; the Gentile was to have no 
entrance into the court of the Lord. The laver was a 
prominent feature in the Lord's house. The Taber- 
nacle and every article of it were anointed with oil, for 
sanctifying. Thus shall nothing defiled by sin have 
place in the Temple of God. (1.) Before material na- 
ture shall be incorporated into the divine kingdom the 
last remnant of the curse shall be removed. (2.) If 
angels be unholy, they cannot belong to this house of 
the Lord. (3.) And what of man? The blood of 
Christ cleanseth from all sin. The Lord Jesus is made 
unto the believer wisdom, and righteousness, and sancti- 
fication, and redemption. In the righteousness of 
Christ, imputed by faith, he is holy in the sight of God. 
Hence it is written : " Ye are washed : ye are clean." 
As the oil on Aaron's head ran down over his body, so 
the anointed Christ anoints all his church. Nor is 
this merely ceremonial. As disbelief is the essence of 
sin, faith is the essence of holiness. This is the spirit 
of the believer, who is a new creature in Christ Jesus. 
Hence it is written : " He cannot sin because the seed 
15 



226 the carpenter's son. 

of God reniaineth in him." This needs be so, for " flesh 
and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God." Hence 
it is also written : " Ye must be born again." The 
must is emphatic, because the natural man " discerneth 
not the things of God, neither indeed can he, because 
they are spiritually discerned." Nicodemus could not 
understand this ; but the great soul-builder repeated : 
" Marvel not that I say unto you, ye must be born 
again ; for except a man be born of water and the 
Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven." This 
regeneration involved all holiness as the acorn involves 
the oak. The Jews boasted themselves the children 
of Abraham ; but they were rebuked by the family- 
builder, who declared that from the stones he could 
raise up children unto Abraham. The dead must be 
revived, whether Jew or Gentile. This doctrine infu- 
riated the " so-called" children of Abraham. But the 
Carpenter's Son showed how far they were from the 
kingdom of heaven, by crying : " Ye generation of 
vipers, how can ye escape the damnation of hell ! " 
The invariable test to all was, " Ye must be born again." 
The Apostle Peter describes the material more fully 
thus : " If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious, 
to whom coming as unto a living stone, disallowed in- 
deed of men, but chosen of God and precious, ye also, 
as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy 
priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to 
God by Jesus Christ . . . Unto you therefore that 
believe, he is precious ; but unto them which be disobe- 
dient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same 



IN THE GOSPEL. 227 

is made the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling 
and a rock of offence even to them which stumble at 
the word, being disobedient ; whereunto also they were 
appointed. But ye are a chosen generation, a royal 
priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people : that ye 
should show forth the praises of him who hath called 
you out of darkness into his marvellous light." And 
the judicial and personal holiness of man is the key-note 
of the holiness of all material of this Temple of God. 

2. The material is valuable. Solomon erected his 
symbolic Temple with the most precious and costly ma- 
terial. The worth of the material of the Temple sym- 
bolized might be inferred from the inestimable price 
paid for it — even the blood of the Son of God. Its 
holiness implies its value, involving the main elements 
of beauty, strength, durability, harmony, and Godlike- 
ness. In the temple of nature each creature was to 
reflect something of its Maker ; so the temple of grace, 
in part and in whole, is to show forth the excellence of 
the God of grace. St. Paul's, in London, is called the 
monument of its builder, Sir Christopher Wren ; so 
this temple is to celebrate the glory of its architect and 
maker, God. 

3. And abundant is to be the material. The vast- 
ness of the foundations implies the vastness of the 
superstructure. The prophetic city of the Lord was 
" four square." The height and breadth of this Temple 
will be equal to its length and depth. Here is room for 
good material of every kind, from every kingdom and 
everv age of the universe. This was suggested by the 



228 the carpenter's son. 

variety and the quantity of material, obtained from far 
and near, with which Solomon's Temple was built. 
The expanse of creation is the field for the collecting of 
matter and spirit for the Lord's house. Indeed, it is to 
embody the whole of the good and God-honoring of 
the universe. 

4. But the material is all prepared. As the masons 
shape and adorn each block of marble for the great 
palace of the king, so there is exactly the work needed 
on every piece of the selected material to make it fit for 
its place in the Lord's house. The divine providence is 
as far reaching as the limits of creation, and, like the 
long arms of the lofty derrick that extends over and 
revolves around the foundations of the erecting edifice, 
picks up the prepared material everywhere, the world 
over, and sets each piece exactly in its place in the up- 
building Temple of the Lord. 

IV. Temple Workers. 

In his letter to the Romans, chapter eight and verses 
twenty-eight and twenty-nine, the Apostle Paul involves 
in a statement, with regard to the perpetual and uni- 
versal welfare of God's children, the general principle 
that what is purposed and predestined in the divine 
mind will be realized by the co-operation of all that 
comes from the divine hands. If it is true that all 
things work together for the believer's predestined con- 
formity to the divine image, it is equally true that all 
things combine to conform the Temple of God's glory 
to the ideal eternally formed in the divine mind. This 



IN THE GOSPEL. 229 

principle of "all things" working thus is as applicable 
to the least creature and circumstance, and relation and 
event as to the greatest. The use that the Great Teacher 
made of the mote, the gnat, the stone, the seed, the 
lily, the vine, the bird of the air, the beast of the field, 
as well as the most ordinary affairs and events of human 
life, is suggestive and illustrative of this principle. 
The ox of Isaiah, and the ass of Balaam give praise to 
the Almighty as truly as the choir of the Temple, the 
chorus of the angelic host. And not only things seen. 
Below the atom and the animalcule is the hidden law, 
which the Creative Father hides out of sight, as parents 
hide Easter-eggs from their children, that the children 
of men may find them and rejoice in what are called 
human " inventions ;" by which also they are greatly 
improved. And how great the building up of the 
divine glory by the discovery of the metals of the earth, 
the forces of steam and electricity, as well as the laws 
of the waves of the sea and the winds of the heavens ? 
The industrious polyp no more builds the coral reef 
than it builds the Temple of God ; and " the cricket on 
the hearth" chirps his praises as truly as chants the music 
of the spheres. Not only "the heavens/' but the earth 
and the sea and all that in them is, "declare the glory 
of God ! " This deep laid building-instinct crops out 
in the vocabulary of man, in all the arts and sciences to 
whose development he applies his mind, and the very 
terms prompted by this instinct are suggestive of praise 
to the great Master-builder of all. What expressions 
are more common than "voice-building;" "health- 



230 the carpenter's son. 

building ;" " character-building ;" " trade-building ;" 
" education-building ; " " civilization-building ; " "na- 
tional-building " ? A lower edifice man has before him 
in conducting the works implied by these and similar 
expressions, but he is doing none the less the highest 
and the grandest work, as the mason that worked at the 
base of the smallest pillar in St. Peter's, was as truly a 
builder on that grandest of human structures as the 
erector of the majestic dome said to canopy the tomb of 
the great Apostle, on whom the church is said to be 
built. And what Temple-building has been done by 
the leaden type, the white-sailed commerce, the civiliza- 
tions of man, the history of the nations ! Read of the 
last in the divine prophecies and providences as fulfilled 
in human events ; the Temple-building of the others is 
seen and read now of all men. Nor is there any evil 
in the universe that is not working in the same direc- 
tion — widespread suffering on earth ; endless torments 
in hell ! Lucifer builds as well as Gabriel the Lord's 
house ; as Sanballat and Tobiah did, though Ezra and 
Nehemiah did not know it. The principle, in universal 
application, is fully established in the divine declara- 
tion : "All things are yours, and ye are Christ's and 
Christ is God's." 

But it is with a small part of this building-force that 
"the Carpenter's Son in the Gospel" has specially to do — 
with the temple-builder man, regenerate and consecrated 
to the work for which he came into being. Though 
relatively small in number, yet this is one of the most 
important builders, and really not a few in number. 



IN THE GOSPEL. 231 

The part of the human family, predestined to do this 
work consciously and willingly, were to be gathered from 
every class, every age and every clime. There was 
need for talents of every kind and every degree, and the 
constant employment of every gift. The powers of 
man, mental, moral, spiritual as well as physical, are only 
instruments which the Master has given for the carrying 
forward of this structure in all its varied and endless de- 
partments, as many as the occupations and duties and 
possibilities of worthy life. In this corps and for cer- 
tain works on the Temple, the Carpenter's Son does not 
employ forced labor, as he does in insensate and diabolic 
nature. But, as the builders of the Tabernacle brought 
their offerings voluntarily, joyfully, abundantly, so must 
be the gifts and labors of the spiritually elect — the 
household of the Carpenter's Son. Hence, as has been 
said, their spirit must be regenerate, faithful and loving 
— ready to do and to suffer their Lord's will. Heavy 
burdens are to be borne in the erection of God's house- 
many self-denials, many pangs, many deaths. One of 
the greatest builders said : " I die daily." The chief 
builder laid the foundations in his blood ! This suggests 
that a peculiarity of these builders is that they are also 
a part of the material of the edifice. This is an inspir- 
ing thought, that not only is it true that self-building is 
temple-building, but temple-building is self-building. 
Laboring for the conformity of God's house is the means 
for the laborers' predestined conformity to the image of 
the Son of God! Wicked men build God's house and 
are cast away, as the nations corrected Israel, and were 



232 the carpenter's son. 

then broken themselves ; but the very effort to do God's 
will is the sanctifying and glorifying process with re- 
gard to the personal temple of the Lord. This building- 
work, therefore, should be ever before the mind, as the 
ideal is before the sculptor, the model before the 
builder. As the mason works on the block of marble 
to shape and adorn it, so should the temple-builder 
work ; and work should be — if the figure mav be con- 
tinued — with the white apron of honest service, with 
the square and plummet of divine truth, with the com- 
passes of faith stretched out after the circuit of the vast 
edifice to be erected ; and, above all, he must work with 
a heart of love, looking above the work to the Master- 
builder, who says to every true-hearted workman, " I 
will guide thee with mine eye." And as he works he 
must study, prayerfully study, the autobiographies of 
the Master-builder in the volumes of nature and provi- 
dence and revelation ; and all his thoughts and knowl- 
edge thus acquired he should consecrate to the energiz- 
ing and directing of the constructive principle of his 
nature, with reference to this God-ordained edification, 
personal, social, ecclesiastical, spiritual, universal, ever- 
lasting, divine ! 

And let these conscious and conscientious workers on 
the Lord's house be cheered w r ith the fact of the univer- 
sal co-operation that they have in this edification. The 
universe is God's workshop, preparing and adjusting 
. material for the temple of his final glory. The thought 
of non-success is a crime in the believer's heart. Let 
the builder realize that he and God's people are a part 



IN THE GOSPEL. 233 

of the structure, and the certainty of their personal 
success and final triumph is the certainty of the success 
and triumph of the Lord's Temple. Let the underlying 
principle of these words following be applied to the 
edifying house of God : u If God be for us, who can 
be against us? He that spared not his own Son, but 
delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him 
freely give us all things ? . . . Nay in all these things 
we shall be more than conquerors through him that 
loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death, nor 
life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things 
present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor 
any other creature shall be able to separate us from the 
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.'' 

V. Temple Methods. 

As to the methods for executing this work, they are 
as varied as the material selected, the workers employed, 
the circumstances surrounding, the forces engaged, and 
the laws of the world, material, mental, moral and 
spiritual : as varied and many as the thoughts, the pur- 
poses, the providences, and the resources of Jehovah. 
But in the Gospel, the Carpenter's Son confines his 
methods to such as are appropriate for what may be 
called church-building work. That is the distinctive 
mission of the Gospel, and the methods prescribed are 
clearly indicated. For this church-building there are 
several requisites : 

1. Perfect Pattern. — This was strikingly set forth in 
the erection of the Tabernacle. A strange emphasis is 



234 the carpenter's son. 

given to this by the fact that Moses repeats to the people 
the exact directions given by the Lord in the mount ; 
and when he builds he reiterates the same particulars as 
having been realized. Thus in the edification of the 
churches, by the introduction of new material and the 
establishment of the old, there must be a constant ref- 
erence to the law and the testimony of the gospel. For 
everything there should be, " Thus saith the Lord/' 

2. Plain Preaching. — By preaching is meant the pro- 
clamation of the Gospel. The command is : " Preach 
the word." There is room for illustration from every 
direction — from the nest-building sparrow, the mound 
and palace-building man and the tower-erecting angel ; 
but all illustration must only make more plain the gos- 
pel, which is the wisdom of God and the power of God. 
This seems a simple method, but God's greatest achieve- 
ments are by the simplest means, whereby the true 
power is discovered. It is by this method, obviously 
insufficient in itself, that the Master-builder has the 
opportunity of evincing, by his Spirit, the omnipotence 
of his hand. God is jealous of his glory. 

3. Patient Prayer. — Powerful were the enemies to 
the erection of the Lord's house in the days of Ezra and 
Nehemiah. But more powerful are they in the days of 
the Gospel. We contend with the powers of darkness — 
the prince of the power of the air : the god of this 
world ! Most rational, then, is the declaration : " Not 
by might, nor power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." 
Hence the divine command: "Pray without ceasing." 
And it is because of this necessity that " prayer is the 



IN THE GOSPEL. 235 

Christian's vital breath." Many may be the obstruc- 
tions to the immediate answer to prayer ; but, made 
according to the divine promise, it shall be inevitably 
answered. In some fifteen lines, in the seventh chap- 
ter of Matthew, the Carpenter's Son declares seven 
times, in one form or another, that there shall be reply 
to the seeking and knocking of patient prayer. The 
adversary of souls may seem to prevail, but the emphatic 
promise encourages the praying soul : " Shall not God 
avenge his own elect which cry day and night unto him?" 
4. Plenteous Pay. — The light of the gospel is free; 
but the candle- stick is very expensive. This is design- 
edly so, that faith and love may be tested by the free 
gifts of money which represents all values among men. 
The vast expenditures on the Tabernacle and Temple 
w r ere nothing in comparison with the riches required to 
be lavished on this greater house of the Lord. Hence 
the enormous wealth given to God's people under the 
gospel. In our own country the wealth of the Lord's 
professed workmen is estimated at eleven billions of dol- 
lars ; and the net annual increase of their wealth four 
hundred and fifty millions of dollars. And with lavish 
hand these riches are employed in the building of the 
Lord's house. In addition to what is expended for the 
general civilization, which is the scaffold about the 
house of the Lord, the sum of eighty millions of dol- 
lars is spent yearly in the United States for purposes of 
religion. But ten times that amount might be profitably 
spent in this service, which should most engross the 
heart of the lover of Christ's kingdom. In the apoc- 



THE CAHPEXTEB's SON. 



ryphal book of Esdras it is related that the wise young 
man to whom Darius promised to give whatever he 
might ask, asked that the king would fulfil his vow to 
rebuild the Lord's house. Before the heroic Judith goes 
forth to bring back the head of Holofernes, the general 
of the besieging Assyrians, she casts herself before God 
and implores : " Throw down their strength in thy 
power, and bring down their force in thy wrath : for 
they have purposed to defile thy sanctuary, and to 
pollute the tabernacle where thy name resteth, and to 
cast down with the sword the horn of thy altar/' What 
lessons of absorbing love to God's house the Jew ever 
gives to the Christian ! 

5. Perpetual Progression. — The Carpenter's Son 
ordered that " beginning from Jerusalem," his fellow- 
laborers should establish the truth in " all nations." 
The field for church-extension is the world. The hu- 
man race is to be reclaimed ; and the name of the 
Master-builder made great " unto the ends of the earth." 
The church-building idea is that of constant expansion. 
For this prayer should be ever made, and money should 
be ever given, and preachers should be in increasing num- 
bers ever employed. The heart's deepest and most per- 
sistent supplication should be : " Thy kingdom come ; 
thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." Lavish 
has been the expenditure on the Lord's house ; but it 
has been that part of the house which is nearest home. 
The ratio of the offerings of the Lord's house at home 
and the Lord's house abroad is the ratio of 400 to 1 : and 
the ratio of ministerial labor is as 500 to 1 ; and of all 



IN THE GOSPEL. 237 

Christian labor as 650 to 1. Alas for this exhibit, in 
view of these facts : 

1st. That there is perhaps no man or woman in the 
United States who has not heard of Christ, while the 
number in pagan lands is so great that if they should 
file before us, one in five seconds, it would take more 
than a hundred years to count them ! 

2d. That the last command of our ascending Lord 
was to disciple the nations, on obedience to which is 
based the promise : " And, lo, I am with you alway, 
even unto the end of the world." 

3d. That the true ground for seeking the divine 
blessing is that it may be expended on others, the reflex 
influence of which brings yet further blessing upon our 
own selves. This is illustrated in the Psalmist's prayer: 
u God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his 
face to shine upon us, that thy way may be known upon 
earth, thy saving health among all nations . , . Then 
shall the earth yield her increase : and God, even our 
own God, shall bless us." 

These facts should broaden our views of church- 
building, at least until our ideas and hopes and labors 
shall be co-extensive with the divine decree : " Ask of 
me and I shall give thee the heathen for an inheritance 
and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." 
The joyous toil of the co-worker with the Carpenter's 
Son should be to aid the realization of that broad edifica- 
tion of the church when the acclaim shall ascend from 
earth to heaven, a The kingdoms of this world are 
become the kingdom of the Lord and of his Christ." 



238 the carpenter's son. 

And this is only a stepping-stone for the infinitely 
wider temple-work of the Lord, compassing the highest 
intelligences of the wide-spread universe. Hear what 
Paul says : " Unto me ... is this grace given that I 
should preach among the gentiles the unsearchable 
riches of Christ : and to make all men see what is the 
fellowship of the mystery which from the beginning of 
the world hath been hid in God, who created all things 
by Jesus Christ ; to the intent that now unto the princi- 
palities and powers in heavenly places might be known by 
the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the 
eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our 
Lord ... of whom the whole family in heaven and 
earth is named/' 

GRADUAL CONSTRUCTION AND FINAL CONSUMMA- 
TION OF TEMPLE. 

I. Gradual Construction. 

To represent this fully would require a picture of the 
progress of the universe for nineteen hundred years. 
All that shall be attempted is to give several indications 
of the progressive construction of a small part of the 
sacred edifice which pertains specially to our race and 
world. 

1. Nineteen hundred years ago, there were one hun- 
dred and twenty names of the Lord's house, unknown 
and despised ; now there are great nations bearing the 
name and exerting the most powerful influence over 
the earthly interests and destiny of the human family. 



IN THE GOSPEL. 239 

2. Nineteen hundred years ago the name of the Car- 
penter's Son was known in a little strip of country in 
dimensions not more than one hundred miles by one 
hundred and sixty; now there is not a country or 
province or state on our round globe where this name 
is not known and worshipped. 

3. During these nineteen centuries there have been 
many variations in the rate of the work's progress, yet 
the work has ever gone on, as indicated by the growing 
number of workmen. 

(1) In the first century there were 500,000 professed 
workers for the Carpenter's Son ; in the second, 2,000,- 
000 ; in the third, 5,000,000 ; in the fourth, 10,000,- 
000; in the fifth, 15,000,000; in the sixth, 20,000,000; 
in the seventh, 24,000,000; in the eighth, 30,000,000; 
in the ninth, 50,000,000; in the tenth, 70,000,000; in 
the eleventh, 80,000,000; in the twelfth, 75,000,000; 
in the thirteenth, 80,000,000; in the fourteenth, 100,- 
000,000; in the fifteenth, 125,000,000; in the sixteenth, 
155,000,000; in the eighteenth, 200,000,000; and, 
judging from the ratio of increase in the former part of 
the nineteenth century, at the close of it there will be over 
300,000,000 professed workers for Jesus. These figures 
aggregate the present population of the world. Suppose 
every man and woman and child of the fourteen hun- 
dred millions on earth were professed laborers for the 
Carpenter's Son, we would have some conception of the 
progress of this great temple on earth ! 

(2) And during these nineteen hundred years, under 
the shadow of the uprising house of the Lord, (a) How 



240 the carpenter's son. 

great has been the progress of the thought, the literature, 
the art, the science, the commerce, the manufactures, the 
agriculture, the jurisprudence, the civil liberty, the good 
will, the benevolence, the goodness, the godliness among 
men. (b) These, and countless other benefits, are the 
outcome of the Lord's house, and in turn furnish aid and 
material for its edification, (c) But, the greatest pro- 
gress is to be seen in the unseen history of these billion 
and a half of loving and faithful builders during these 
nineteen centuries. How many secret battles did they 
fight with sin and Satan? How many victories did 
they win in the name of the Lord? How many 
their self-sacrifices, their good deeds, their sufferings, 
their martyrdoms for the Lord ? How much interest 
they occasioned among rejoicing angels in heaven and 
guardian spirits on earth? What miracles of grace 
were performed by the Carpenter's Son on their behalf? 
What the frequent disappointments and consternation in 
the kingdom of darkness at the progress of this house 
of the Lord ? As far as the wide-spread universe is, the 
work of this temple-building has been going on during 
these nineteen centuries. 

(3) And what is the present outlook? (a) In the 
last ten years, the increase of laborers among pagan 
nations has been three and a half per cent, greater than 
in our own civilized land, (b) The cross is displayed 
in two hundred and twenty-four languages of the human 
family, and in one hundred and forty-eight millions of 
Bibles in circulation, (c) In the past fifty years, two 
millions of souls have been gathered in "as workers 



IN THE GOSPEL. 241 

together with God," called also "God ? s building." 
Bishop Simpson says: The world is full of promise. 
Everything looks cheerful. Never have there been so 
many Bibles, so many schools, so many sermons, so 
many workers for God, since the light first dawned on 
the garden of Eden, (d) But the influence of the Car- 
penter's Son, unlike the distinguished of the earth, 
growing stronger and stronger as the ages go on, cannot 
be calculated by statistics. His cross has permeated the 
literature and modified or overthrown the governments 
of men not conducive to his work ; his natal days, in 
the flesh and in the spirit, are celebrated by the civilized 
world. And this influence is disintegrating the institu- 
tions of sin, and gathering up vast and valuable material 
for the establishment of grace. His providence is 
subordinating all art and science to this end; and, in 
fact, it is apparent that the world's civilization is only 
"a scaffold for the erection of the Lord's house." All 
creation, visible and invisible, unites with the persons 
of the- Godhead covenanted for this purpose, to carry 
forward over every obstacle, natural and supernatural, 
human and diabolic, to its perfect and glorious comple- 
tion, the Lord's house erecting by the Carpenter's Son. 

II. Final Consummation. 

1. The certainty of this glorious consummation rests 
upon these sure foundations : 

(1) The eternal conception and ideal of this temple of 
glory of the divine mind, in relation to which were his 
purposes and plans and predestinations^ for the execu- 
16 



242 the carpenter's son. 

tion of which the eternal council of the Godhead was 
formed and the whole universe was created and has been 
preserved and controlled. 

(2) The mediatorial glory of the Carpenter's Son is 
involved in this consummation, the failure of which 
would make his varied manifestations, and revela- 
tions, and symbols, and his incarnation and sacrifice and 
resurrection, and commission, and ascension, and inter- 
cession, and gift of the Spirit, and promises to his work- 
men, all in vain, and would indeed virtually overthrow 
the divine throne itself ! 

(3j The word and the oath of the Father have been 
given to the Son. This is the accomplishment of the 
work ; for God is truth, and with him there is no time. 
In the divine being the Temple is already complete. 
Time drags on with the creature, and he looks to the 
future with hope; but with the Carpenter's Son there is 
already the celebration of the eternal glory. 

2. And what is to be the sum of this great consum- 
mation ? 

(1) The race of man, broken into diverse and con- 
flicting nations, is to be reunited in common faith and 
love as the redeemed part of the family of God. 

(2) Physical nature, groaning and travailing because 
of moral evil, shall be restored to the perfection of which 
its Creator said : « It is good ; " hence " the earnest ex- 
pectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation 
of the sons of God." 

(3) Heaven and earth shall be restored in relations 
intimate and fraternal. Paul speaks of the Lord's 



IN THE GOSPEL. 243 

family being in heaven and earth : and declares that in 
the dispensation of the fulness of times all things in 
heaven and earth shall be gathered together in one — 
even in Christ. 

(4) The whole universe, material and immaterial, 
known and unknown, shall be united in one stupendous, 
magnificent whole, which the Greeks called rd nav, 
described by Humboldt as essential unity with infinite 
diversity, but which is the realization of the divine 
ideal of a universal and everlasting Temple, whose 
shekinah is God himself, whose worship is the homage 
of the universe, and whose arch dome shall reverberate 
ever with acclaims to its architect and builder, who was 
once the crucified, but is now the glorified, Carpenter's 
Son. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

IN GLOEY. 

The Son of man standing on the right hand of God, — Acts vii. 56. 

FTIHAT was a signal occasion when the Carpenter's 
-*- Son led his disciples out as far as Bethany, and 
having given them instructions and blessed them, 
ascended into a cloud and disappeared from their sight ; 
but, they transfixed in gaze, stood looking up into 
the heavens, doubtless following in imagination the 
vision of his ascension, until they were brought to 
themselves by the appearance of angels, saying : " The 
same Jesus that is taken up from you into heaven shall 
so come as ye have seen him go into heaven." 

This ascension was natural and necessary. He went 
back to the Father, having done the work the Father 
gave him to do, because he came out from the Father. 
Of his relation with the other world, the reader of 
his earthly career is kept constantly reminded. He ap- 
peared once — in the hour of transfiguration — in heavenly 
glory. Angels declared his conception by the Holy 
Ghost and his name "God with us/" shouted hosannahs 
at his birth, ministered unto him in temptation and 
agonies, and received him into glory. Evil spirits knew 
him, and even fell down and worshipped him. He 
communed constantly with the Father, prayed unto him, 
and agonized in his holy presence, and died commending 
244 



IN GLORY. 245 

his spirit to the keeping of him whose voice had come 
to him from heaven more than once, saying, " This is 
my beloved Son/' He had prayed, in the presence of 
his disciples, "And now, O Father, glorify thou me 
with thine own self with the glory which I had with 
thee before the world was." And glimpses of this 
glorified state are given in the Word. The heavens 
were opened to Stephen, and he saw the Carpenter's Son 
standing on the right hand of God. On the isle of 
Patmos, John saw him with awfully glorious appear- 
ance surrounded by the praising hosts of heaven. 

But when he ascends to the glory of his Father, 
does the Carpenter's Son give up his great constructive 
work ? Before his ascension, having before his mind 
his royal carpentry, he distinctly stated, "In my 
Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so 
I should have told you. I go to prepare a place for 
you, that where I am ye may be also." This idea and 
promise his disciples kept before them : and when Paul 
refers to the departure of the saint he words it thus : 
" If the earthly house of this tabernacle be dissolved, 
we have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens." 

1. What that house is that the Carpenter's Son is gone 
to prepare for his people we do not know exactly ; nor 
how long it will be in course of preparation. Being a 
place, the body of the saint is implied as an inhabitant 
of it, and the general resurrection may not come until 
the full preparation, though he said to the thief on the 
cross, " This day shalt thou be with me in paradise." 



246 the cabpentek's son. 

The earth was preparing a long time for man : the 
kingdom of heaven among men, a long time for the 
coming of the Carpenter's Son : and many may be the 
years and ages before the heavenly mansions shall be 
complete. 

2. But, meanwhile, how is the glorified Carpenter's 
Son employed ? Is his mind and hand less engrossed 
in his mediatorial work than when on earth ? 

(!) His first recorded act in glory was the fulfilment 
of his promise to send the Holy Spirit to reprove the 
world of sin and righteousness and judgment to come, 
which he did in that marvellous Pentecostal outpouring 
in which his presence was indicated by fire and by which 
multitudes from all parts of the world were brought to 
the feet of the despised Carpenter's Son. And all the 
grace received, and all the power manifested, and all the 
success obtained by his disciples, in preaching the word, 
in planting churches, in working miracles, in saving 
souls, in escaping dangers, in enduring persecutions, in 
writing epistles, whether in Palestine, Asia Minor or 
Europe, were freely avowed to have come from him. 
Thus has it been in all the ages since, the world over, 
even unto the present day. The testimony of every 
believing soul is : " Not unto us, O Lord, not unto 
us, but unto thy name, give glory ! " So preserved is 
the intimate and vital and conscious relation between 
him and his people, that his glorified state is sometimes 
declared to be the state of saints on earth, as when Paul 
blesses God that his people are blessed "with all 
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ." 



IN GLORY. 247 

(2) The interests of his people he makes identical 
with his own. When he smites down the persecuting 
Saul he asks, Why persecutest thou me f In the last 
day he shall say, " Inasmuch as ye have done it unto 
one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it 
unto me." 

(3) But, the revelation is plain that the work he 
began on earth, he is perfecting in heaven. In the 
heavenly Tabernacle, of which the tabernacle of earth 
was only a shadow, he, as a royal High Priest after the 
order of Melchizedek, is offering the sacrifice of the 
Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the world, 
and making endless intercessions for his people, whereby 
their consciences are purged from guilt ; and whereby 
the varied duties, personal, social, ecclesiastic, prefigured 
in the Mosaic ritual and enforced under the gospel econ- 
omy, may be faithfully performed; the work begun in 
them brought to completion ; and their perseverance to 
the end made sure. 

3. Nor is he unmindful of any interest of his peo- 
ple. In the apocalypse we see him : 

(1) Walking among the churches, giving counsel, 
rebuking, encouraging, in fulfilment of his promise : 
" Where two or three are gathered together in my name 
there am I in the midst of them." 

(2) He is also the mover of all the history and all 
the mysteries of grace. It is " the Lamb " — the Car- 
penter's Son — who is represented as breaking the seven 
seals, which none other can break. 

(3) He has an eye ever to the enemies of his people — 



248 THE carpenter's son. 

the beast and the dragon and the scarlet harlot. And 
it is from his hands that come the vials of wrath. 

(4) And all the grand representations of the " Reve- 
lation/' are they not the pictures of the administration 
of the Carpenter's Son, during the ages, in the interest 
of the great work of his hands ? 

4. And the promise of the angels and of his own 
lips, with regard to his return for the final adjustment 
of the material of this world, shall be fulfilled in the 
midst of the glory of the angelic hosts, the sounding of 
trumpets which shall awake to life the dead bodies of 
all ages, and with a personal effulgence of glory before 
which the sun shall pale and the wicked nations of men 
and the infernal hosts of darkness shall tremble and 
seek to flee away ; but in which the righteous shall 
rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory. How 
vast the accession thus to be made to the perfected ma- 
terial and to the glorified worshippers of the eternal 
Temple of the Lord ! 

5. But, this does not exhaust the resources of the 
Carpenter's Son, in the construction of this Temple of 
the divine praise. His administration over our race is 
momentous, but his government and work reach much 
further. Perfect before him is his ideal and predestined 
temple, which is in course of erection ; and his all-seeing 
eye sweeps over the field of creation, and his all-reaching 
hand takes hold on material here and there and every- 
where, and his wisdom and his power are ever engaged 
in realizing the end for which all things were made. A 
human architect and builder, infinitely magnified in 



IN GLORY. 249 

ability and work, would give some idea of the engage- 
ment of the Carpenter's Son — supposing that master- 
builder and architect to be engaged in realizing some 
grand, life-long ideal of his mind. All that has been 
said of the heavenly pursuits of the glorified Carpen- 
ter's Son, and all that he really does, has reference to 
this all-comprehending and eternal work. The follow- 
ing words just fall under the eye, in studying the Sun- 
day-school lesson of July 29th, 1888, on "The Taber- 
nacle," which is in harmony with our figure : 

" The modern architect, like the one on Sinai, sees 
the building he is going to construct before the timber 
has been cut or the ground broken. Gerard von Rile, 
six hundred years ago, saw the cathedral which has just 
been completed beside the Rhine at Cologne. Slowly, 
since the year 1200, German artisans have been copying 
into stone von Rile's thought, working from his plan, 
and the cathedral is perfect to-day because it was perfect 
then. All that God does is in pursuance of a plan, an 
eternal idea come to utterance." 

But how can we take in the glory of that final resti- 
tution of all things material and immaterial, human and 
angelic and divine, and the restored universe as the 
Temple of God, compassing all good and full of all 
praises to the Lamb, world without end ? God is mer- 
ciful to our weakness. As he brings down to human 
comprehension his own infinite and everlasting being 
in the person of the Carpenter's Son, so he brings down 
to our capacity his infinite and everlasting house erecting 
to his glory, in its final completeness, in the glorious pic- 



250 the carpenter's son. 

ture of the New Jerusalem, with its gates of pearls, its 
foundations of precious stones, its streets of gold, the 
river of life proceeding from the throne of the Lamb, 
who is the light and glory and worship of the place, and 
upon whose vesture and thigh a name is written — 
" King of Kings and Lord of Lords." 

And this is enough, — this Jerusalem the golden, — for 
it serves as a back-ground for the sight of Him whom 
above all the believer wishes to see u face to face." In 
Saint Peter's of Rome, only a part of its greatness can 
be taken in at a time, and many days are needed to 
study and appreciate its vastness and beauty. So the 
cycles of eternity must roll around before the mind can 
grasp all the glory of the perfected Temple of God. 
But, as the shekinah was the glory of the Tabernacle 
and the Temple, and the presence of the "Holy One of 
Israel" is the glory of the churches of our day, so the 
glorified Carpenter's Son is the glory of the Lord's 
Temple, world without end, and we shall " see him as 
he is." That sufficeth ; that will suffice for evermore. 
And even now may we not have a glimpse of him, 
through the Apocalyptic vision of John? We have 
seen u Christ on Calvary." Here is a sketch of " Christ 
before Pilate :" 

" He stands before Pilate, his hands firmly bound in 
front of him, his face, though calm and strong, bearing 
the marks of hunger and sleeplessness and the terrible 
mental agony through which he has lately passed. As 
another has said in describing this picture, ' Though 
knowing he is to be sentenced to death, there is nothing 



IN GLORY. 251 

of hopelessness in his face. He is courageous, though 
submissive to the will of the Father ; not shrinking be- 
fore the fierce looks and fiercer cries of the angry mob 
eager for his life, but with calm forbearance and quiet 
dignity enduring the insults and bitter taunts as one 
rendered superior to them by the consciousness of his 
divine mission.' No tremor passes over this wonderful 
face, no thought of self is betrayed by a single line or 
movement. He stands erect, though bound, looking 
into the face of Pilate in a searching way that has 
caused many to remark that it is Christ who is the real 
judge and Pilate who is being weighed in the balance." 
How different the Carpenter's Son in glory! See 
the holy picture, not by the Genius-inspired Munkacsy, 
but by the God-inspired John: "I looked, and, behold, 
a door was opened in heaven . . . and, behold, a throne, 
and there was a rainbow round about the throne . . . 
And round about the throne I saw four and twenty 
elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had 
on their heads crowns of gold . . . The four and twenty 
elders fall down before him that sat on the throne, and 
worship him that liveth for ever and ever, and cast their 
crowns before the throne, saying, Thou art worthy, O 
Lord, to receive glory, and honor, and power: for thou 
hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and 
were created . . . And they sung a new song, saying, 
Thou art worthy . . . for thou wast slain, and hast re- 
deemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and 
tongue, and people, and nation ; and hast made us unto 
our God kings and priests . . . And I heard the voice of 



252 the carpenter's son. 

many angels round about the throne . . . and the number 
of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thou- 
sands of thousands; saying with a loud voice, Worthy 
is the Lamb that was slain; . . . and every creature which 
is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and 
such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, heard 
I saying, Blessing, and honor, and glory, and power, be 
unto him that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the 
Lamb, for ever and ever." 



THE END. 



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